Reno's Sack of Gifts
by Reno Spiegel
Summary: Fifth Edition. A small update for 2007. This thing's still rolling.
1. Introduction

RenoS.:  
Merry Christmas, and welcome to Reno's Sack of Gifts, first edition. I say that because I imagine I'll be updating this next year. Anyway. This year I asked a group of friends -- LiveJournal friends, to be exact -- who wanted a story, just because I couldn't mail them anything. A note to them: I changed all Time of Years to Christmas Day. It fits.  
  
Vicious:  
His mother runs on paranoia.  
  
RenoS.:  
Indeed. Well, the response was a bit more than I had expected. Six stories to do in a week. In six days I'd done three, and half-way through yesterday, Christmas Eve, I considered starting the last three. And so I did.  
  
Reno:  
At ten last night.  
  
Vicious:  
The undisputed King of Procrastination.  
  
RenoS.:  
I consider it my greatest talent. But, I did finish all three, aided by a can of Red Bull.  
  
Reno:  
-looks like he's been through this-  
And what TIME did you finish, Reno?  
  
RenoS.:  
11:57, three minutes from my personally-set deadline.  
  
Vicious:  
Fucking. Nutjob.  
  
RenoS.:  
Ignoring that, let's go into story details, then I'll let you have at the actual things. Unless you skipped this, and in that case, you'll die. So, from all of us here at Neo-Spiegel, Inc...  
  
Vicious:  
Which is just a box where he keeps hard copies of his stories.  
  
RenoS. and Muses:  
Merry Fucking Christmas.  
  
-  
  
Story One  
For: Renee, b.k.a. Lady Spoon  
Pros: TURKS.  
Cons: Limited time.  
Overall: Not too bad.  
  
Story Two  
For: Nighty Night  
Pros: Old-school Turks, who I love writing about.  
Cons: Not many places to take it.  
Overall: Lovin' the ending.  
  
Story Three  
For: Chocobo Goddess  
Pros: Silver Rose tie-in.  
Cons: Too short and sweet. Heheh.  
Overall: Coulda been better.  
  
Story Four  
For: Tio  
Pros: No strict guidelines; free-reign for me.  
Cons: My humour just ran away.  
Overall: I love it, I really do.  
  
Story Five  
For: Aelyin  
Pros: Humour's back.  
Cons: I really don't like writing Cid, so it lacks in quality.  
Overall: Too short; not proud of it.  
  
Story Six  
For: Tonya  
Pros: Reno + Rock = Good Times.  
Cons: Written extremely fast.  
Overall: Not too bad, but I think I'm the only one cackling at it. 


	2. 1 For Lady Spoon

Author's Note: These are my Christmas presents to the various friends I can't send mail to. They will be posted throughout Christmas day -- probably now, if you're reading this -- or all at once if I finish them all before then.  
  
So, Merry Christmas, and enjoy your read.  
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Reno's Sack of Gifts 1  
by Reno Spiegel  
Dante@towernetwork.net  
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"...What are we doing?"  
  
"...Casing the joint."  
  
"...Reno, it's an orphanage."  
  
And so it was. Elena and Reno, under the latter's command, had been sitting out here for half an hour in the snow. Luckily, there was no wind, because that would have made the cold completely intolerable.  
  
Reno stood right outside of the orphanage, peering in through a dark window. He was squinting to hard his eyes were watering, and Elena looked bored. She yawned, glancing at her watch as it chimed out. Three AM. Snow fell all around them, with no wind to take it anywhere but down, and they still stood there like idiots in short-sleeved shirts.  
  
Reno looked irritated, but didn't look at her. Instead, he looked for the awful-horrible-man-killing beast that was lurking deep within the confines of Mary Sue's Just-Like-Home Orphanage. Rude was scheduled to go in and play Santa Clause for the children later, as per request of Rufus. His way of sticking his finger in Midgar's eye and saying "nyah nyah" was making a trained assassin play Jolly Saint Nick.  
  
Elena was really bored.  
  
Suddenly, Reno jumped back and hunkered down. He looked frightened as he lifted his hand and pointed toward the window. "There's a Marlboro in there. It's got tons of eyes. Against the back wall."  
  
Just to humour him, Elena looked inside. Indeed, there was a hideous beast against the back wall, baring its fangs as if poised to strike the children asleep on the floor. She almost reached for her gun.  
  
Just to humour him some more.  
  
"Reno, you priss, stand up. That's a glow-in-the-dark reprint of a painting."  
  
The redhead didn't look convinced. "Oh, yeah? So which painting is it?" he snarled, easing back up and glancing inside with her.  
  
"It's Starry Night by Van Gogh, and if you had your eyes on something aside from my ass half the time, you'd know the basic famous paintings, you dipshit." She growled right back at him, more in a mocking way that one of defiance. She glanced around, on all sides. No one was watching them yet. Then again, most people were asleep. "Are you okay now, Sir Marlboro?"  
  
Her comrade looked dumbly at her. "I do NOT look at your ass." He looked ready to say something else, but he noticed she was looking a bit left of his head, then felt the tap on his shoulder.  
  
Spinning too quickly, his mag-rod lifted from his leg and tapped the other man in the knee. It hit his knee only because the man behind him, in a Force -- Midgar called them police, but there was a group called the Junon Force that did essentially the same thing -- uniform, was a mammoth. He had a good six inches on Rude, who was the tallest person the two Turks knew, and was as wide as a small car.  
  
Good thing his face seemed lenient. "My apologies, sir, but what are you doing?"  
  
Elena was about to say "Casing the joint," then remembered they had no authority over the Force. Legrasse held all control on this continent. He and Robert B. ShinRa were old poker buddies, but they still didn't authorize each other's assassins to mouth off. "We're...err..."  
  
The big man looked at her expectantly. These two had been in street clothes, because Turks were suspicious around three in the morning, so Reno's "GO SUCK A FUCK" shirt was a tip off. He tapped his thumb on his elbow, arms crossed.  
  
Elena fumbled for something to say. Two very suspicious-looking, undercover Turks should have come prepared for this, but it had slipped her mind entirely. Something clicked, and she suddenly put on her best drunk's appearance and slung her arm around Reno's snow-covered. She looked around, as if choosing her words from a list. "Newlywedsssss. We found out the other day that my hushb... husbn..." She smacked Reno in the back of the head lazily. "Thus lug...he'sh not EQUIPPED well enffgh." Her head lolled back. "KnowhatImeen?"  
  
Reno uncertainly returned the faulty embrace, looking sheepish for once. "Yeah, we just left the Launch Pad down the street. You know, the big bar. Wife's a bit of an alcoholic, but we were just looking in to see if there was any way we could see if one of 'em was right for us." He grinned.  
  
The cop squinted, scrutinizing them, then smiled and nodded. "I understand, sir. Sorry to be a bother. You and your wife have a good time, now." He nodded again, turned, and walked away. Once he was around the corner, Reno cackled.  
  
He did so because Elena had just punched him in the ear and forcefully removed his vice grip on her rear. "What's your problem, DEAR? You said it yourself, I'm HARMLESS. Shall we continue our date tomorrow night, or what?"  
  
The blonde turned her lip up at him. "Fucking creep," she hissed. In a few minutes, she had settled down, Reno having gone back to the window. "Are we assured that there's no Chimera in there waiting to bite Rude's head off?"  
  
The redhead took a moment of consideration, then nodded and walked over. They started back to the hotel rooms they had been provided with for this, each Turk with a separate one. The doors between Reno's, Rude's, and Tseng's were always open so they could yell at each other, but Elena had gotten one two rooms away from the third and locked her doors frequently.  
  
Paranoia, Tseng called it.  
  
In about twenty minutes, they were riding up to their floor in the elevator. No words had been exchanged since they'd left. Once they did reach the floor, Reno pulled out his card and slid it into the door. Before he could pull it out, however, Elena was in his face again.  
  
"Faust."  
  
His eyebrow rose. For a moment, he thought she was speaking in tongue, but then remember the Café Faust, owned by one of the lesser-respected businessmen -- he did a bunch of black market work -- was in town. The first, anyway; it was now a large chain. "What about it? You want us to whack the owner?"  
  
"No," she said simply, a smirk taking over. She couldn't do this with a straight face. "The date you mentioned continuing. Seven tomorrow night, right after Rude gets done fucking his elves, you come back and pick me up. You owe me, Mister No-Look-All-Touch."  
  
He had this dull expression on his face. "You're kidding." Her reply was in the negative. Then he smirked as well, taking the card out and opening the door. He stood there for a second, half-way in the room, and nodded. "Yeah, I suppose. By the way, I like the auto-lock doors here."  
  
She looked confused. "Why's tha --"  
  
Half a second later, Reno Drannor was in his room, chortling. Another second after that and Elena Simms was looking dumbstruck at the door. She wasn't quite sure if she should run to her room to wash the foreign taste of Reno's tongue out of her mouth or shoot at him through the door. She did neither, instead just turned with a strangely-calm look on her face, let the edge of her lips turn upward ever-so-slightly, and shook her head.  
  
"Fucking creep only moves fast when he wants to." 


	3. 1 For Nighty

Author's Note: These are my Christmas presents to the various friends I can't send mail to. They will be posted throughout Christmas day -- probably now, if you're reading this -- or all at once if I finish them all before then.  
  
So, Merry Christmas, and enjoy your read.  
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Reno's Sack of Gifts 2  
by Reno Spiegel  
Dante@towernetwork.net  
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Every time a new Turk Captain came into authority, they would get something with it, that being a bar that had been in the business ever since the first captain had bought it for thirteen gil and a blind dog.  
  
This was many years ago.  
  
The team, however, rarely got a chance to go there due to the business they were in. So they had made an agreement with President ShinRa; every year at Christmas they would go to the bar for a day and spend as much quality time as a Turk could there. Aside from the few times they went to Junon for business a year, this was the only time they got to go to the bar, and there were no rules, though none of the Turks were really bad-behavioured.  
  
And so there they were, on the twenty-fifth day of December, switching beverages between eggnog and tequila. This year's Turks had been coming here for seventeen years now, but they still weren't tired of it. Vincent Valentine was the legal owner, but he gave just as much power to his comrades, Gerald Highwind -- his son Cid was already out in the workshop with him everyday -- and Cero Kisaragi, who refused to tell him just how he fit into the dynasty.  
  
Either way, they were there for another year.  
  
Vincent turned the radio down a bit, as he had been doing constantly, mostly because Cero was flicking the knob, strew over the bar in a non-drunk way. None of them really got drunk when they came here, because it was a time for talk. They had found a microphone in the wall the last year, and literally killed an office clerk over it.  
  
That had taught them.  
  
"So," Cero said, sitting up and looking around. The bar had once been an apartment, and was about the size of one, just with neon lights all over the place and two tables. "Gerald, how's the kid?"  
  
The man grinned, cigarette between his fingers; it ran in the family. Gerald Highwind loved talking about little Cid, as his mother had left them a year before. Since then, it had been he and the boy out in the workshop. Cid was even working on jacked-up cars by himself, something any sane parent wouldn't let their kid do. "Ah, Cid's doin' great. Little bugger taught 'imself to juggle wrenches the other day, I guess."  
  
This was a pride in the Highwind family.  
  
The mysterious dynasty-member seemed satisfied, then looked at Vincent with a smirk that belonged to some villain. Vincent himself had a finger in his mouth, having started pulling something out of his teeth, but he was stopped now, eyebrows furrowed. "And what're you doing, Vince? Cleaning your fangs?"  
  
The red-eyed man looked dully at his partner, who had brown hair like his that stopped at his shoulders. Garald looked too much like his son one day would. He pulled the finger out of his mouth and replied, "You know how much I hate those vampire cracks. You know there's an office joke that you're all going to come to my door with pitchforks and torches?"  
  
"My joke runs on." Cero seemed proud.  
  
"Yeah, well. You know how much I hate that shit."  
  
The "Wutain" rolled his eyes. "C'mon, Vinny, nobody takes it seriously."  
  
Vincent snapped at him, eyes bulging. "Scarlet carries garlic!"  
  
The other two looked amused. Vincent was usually on the quiet side, but not when his rumoured vampirism came up. On the day the three had met, Cero had stared at Vincent like he was a devil -- the reason being because he thought he was -- and started screaming prayers and curses at him in Wutain. Someone with an overactive imagination had picked it up and in a week the building was swearing up and down that Vincent Valentine was a vampire.  
  
"So," Gerald said slowly. "What d'you two think about restartin' the Space Progr'm?" It was no secret the blonde man was trying his hardest to pay Palmer to bring it up to President ShinRa, who would then have to take it to Professor Hojo, to restart the Space Program. It was a chain that would never be finished. Unless you promised Palmer a month of lobsters, he gave you zilch.  
  
Vincent shook his head. "Not happening, Germ." Nickname, of course, given by, who else, Cero. In turn, he was dubbed Zero. "I wish your family the best, 'cause I know you want to be the first man in space, that or Cid, but I don't see Hojo breaking anytime soon."  
  
Gerald sighed and took a drink from his sake, the only thing he'd drink aside from a liking for tea he'd just gotten. "Goddamn psycho."  
  
The third of them saw this as a window of opportunity. He looked at Vincent with a very-hinting gaze. "You and Hojo...was he the one who bit you?"  
  
There was a moment of silence.  
  
Gerald whistled loudly, and Vincent rubbed his left wrist. The former bent over and looked at the thing that had just hit the floor. "Jesus, Vince, you hit HARD." Indeed, there was Cero Kisaragi, having been hit by the famous Valentine Left Hook, out-cold on the floor.  
  
The deliveree looked pleased. "Boxer. Not vampire." 


	4. 1 For Chocobo Goddess

Author's Note: These are my Christmas presents to the various friends I can't send mail to. They will be posted throughout Christmas day -- probably now, if you're reading this -- or all at once if I finish them all before then.  
  
So, Merry Christmas, and enjoy your read. ( Tie-in with the Silver Rose series. )  
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Reno's Sack of Gifts 3  
by Reno Spiegel  
Dante@towernetwork.net  
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The mimicking voice that rose from her left was only half-serious. "Y'know, Seph, I feel really bad about making you go to Costa, how ab --"  
  
"Shut up!" she yelled. Smoke billowed from beneath the hood of her husband's Cougar, and even the bulge in her stomach couldn't raise her mood. An hour ago the two tires on the driver's side had burst, and since then the car had been leaning to the side. Some idiot had spilled a toolbox of nails in the road, and their spares were small.  
  
Then the engine had died on them.  
  
"I'm starting to wonder why you push this car so hard," Aeris huffed. She was bundled in blankets and actually quite warm, but still shivered when Sephiroth opened the door and got out.  
  
He patted the car affectionately and called back that this old thing loved him. Popping the hood, the smoke continued to roll out and he poked around inside for a moment, then he slammed it down, walked around the car, got in, and shut the door without a word. He sighed heavily and looked at her, smiling cautiously. "...We need to call a tow-truck."  
  
The snow was letting up now, but there was still ice on the roads, the reason they had hit the nails. The sun was beginning to peek over the horizon -- Sephiroth had loaded his wife and their bags into the car at midnight the previous night without her having any idea at all, then told her when she woke up at the boatyard -- but it was moving extremely slow, as it did this far north.  
  
Aeris' mouth turned down dangerously. Despite having been tricked into this, she had been looking forward to taking a break from the rest of the group. Just she, her husband, and little...well, whatever his or her name was going to be. "A tow-truck? We've been making this trip for a day and a half, and you want to quit this far in?"  
  
Sephiroth, the cliché husband, chose his words carefully. "Not quit. I'll tip him extra and he'll tow us to Icicle Inn. It'll be a free ride the rest of the way." He paused. "Of course...it would be the only part we're directly paying for, but..."  
  
She didn't look impressed, but not mad like he'd thought she might be. "This was supposed to be a quiet weekend with just the two of us in a cabin in the mountains. Not some greasy tow-truck driver and car repairs."  
  
His eyes narrowed. He did this when he was nervous. "...Weekend?"  
  
This didn't seem to be the idea she had. "Weekend. You know, today and tomorrow, then back to work."  
  
"Err..." His dragged the last consonant out for a moment, then scratched his head. "I kinda cleared it with Reno that we'd be gone for two or three weeks."  
  
Aeris glanced down quickly, then to the backseat. No wonder she had a third of the baggage he had. The woman did usually pack heavy, didn't she? Groaning, she looked back at him. "But -- what if -- ?" She looked down again.  
  
The silver-haired Turk stared at her. "Aeris. It's been six months. I don't think we have to be on alert yet." She seemed to just realize this, and so he patted her on the arm and grabbed his phone. "It'll be fine. I'll have him tow us there, then take the car to the shop. I hear Icicle even brings you the car when they're done."  
  
His wife saw she wasn't going to win this one, especially when he started the conversation with the towing company. After a few minutes of price negotiation, the phone was clicked off softly and there was an uneasy silence between the two.  
  
"He settled at --"  
  
"-- One-fifty. I'm ten inches away from you."  
  
He settled into silence again. He never believed the stories that marriage was hell, and he still really didn't, but this was straight out of a movie. The trucker, who called himself Tow-Man, had said he was headed back to the Inn anyway and he would be there in a few minutes. And the man kept his promises.  
  
Just as the sun shot out over the horizon, an average-size man with a ponytail and yello-rimmed sunglasses stepped down from a large tow-truck. If you could even call him a man, that is. He looked to be nineteen at the oldest, and not too tall even for that. Without a word he went to work, and the two got out of the car, still not speaking.  
  
In five minutes, the young man stepped back up into his truck and opened the other side for them. The other side, however, was a ladder to a second level, to where the both of them ascended with muttered thanks. Closing the hatch behind them, they did their best to fit. As big as it looked, two adults were hard to fit in there. A small window was looking forward, nothing in the "room" aside from that.  
  
Sephiroth was sort of surprised, then, when he looked over and saw her smirking at him. Giving her his curious look, she nodded to the window. "Don't worry about it. Sunrise is a lot better here than Costa, anyway."  
  
Indeed, the sun was bouncing off the snow in that glittering way, hitting it at just the right angle as they rolled on. He shook his head, but he was smiling. "Merry Christmas, Aeris..." 


	5. 1 For Tio

Author's Note: These are my Christmas presents to the various friends I can't send mail to. They will be posted throughout Christmas day -- probably now, if you're reading this -- or all at once if I finish them all before then.  
  
So, Merry Christmas, and enjoy your read.  
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Reno's Sack of Gifts 4  
by Reno Spiegel  
Dante@towernetwork.net  
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It was just after dinner when she went upstairs to check on him. After Meteor, the cost of housing in the neighboring towns from Midgar had plumetted almost to nil. A few weeks after that, with a little more baggage than she had intended, ?she had bought a house in Kalm for next to nothing.  
  
Actually, she and Barret had bought the house. Apparently the low compatibility with the environment combined with the overcharge from Meteor's destruction had his Corel, where the living standards were cots and dirt floors, and wiped out the town. Though there was no attraction between the two, they had moved into the house together.  
  
As well as their extra baggage.  
  
Barret, trying to keep his mind off Corel, could be heard grunting as he scrubbed all the surfaces in the kitchen twice, just like every night. The cuckoo clock she, Tifa, had so adored chimed six as she reached the upper landing.  
  
Barely watching where she was going, she ran into the wall once, then paused, regained her usual alert mindset, and walked into the room. His door was wide open. He sat on the bed, upright, with the sheet thrown back. His right knee was bandaged tightly, and another wound around his forehead. His left eye was plum-purple, left arm in a sling and a third bandage winding around his right hand and wrist. To top it off was a boot to keep his left foot straight and a mass of herb-packed wrappings around his chest and stomach.  
  
He hadn't left the room in a month, maybe two by now, but he never appeared bored. He could flex his right hand now, and often muttered how he would need to start his memoirs before the pain killed him. Despite what he had done, Tifa felt compassionate toward him.  
  
Blue eyes, one lazy because of a chunk of glass that had been forced into his forehead had turned it that way when the paramedics removed it, looked her way under messy blonde hair. He shook his head, and regretted it immediately. He tried to touch his forehead with his left hand, then resigned and sighed. "Tifa..." He spoke slowly, like a learning child. "...There's nothing to it...anymore...nothing but..." He focused hard, mouth working silently.  
  
The doctors had said it was a miracle he could still speak. She could deal with him struggling to form sounds.  
  
"...pain." His words had a strange accent, like someone with a mental handicap. Doctors once again said that his thought process was running fine, but there were fried connections. He could get his point across, but it would be like repeatedly proofreading. Some days it could take him five minutes to get a sentence right.  
  
He would be like this for the rest of his life.  
  
She took a few more steps into the room and sat next to him, rubbing his shoulder, then stopping quickly. It was hard to remember someone with the speech capabilities of seven-year-old still thought at his regular age, if not above. He could take offense to something normally, but it would be hard for him to get the point across.  
  
'We were thinking about lethal injection to spare him the trouble,' said the nurse she had talked to, in all honesty. 'But then you two came along and claimed him, so we decided we'd let you have him.'  
  
Trying to raise his spirits, Tifa poked him in the arm. "Wounds heal. You should know that better than anyone. Sure, some people might not be able to understand what you went through, but I will." She paused. "Hell, I basically helped you learn how to speak again."  
  
He didn't seem to find this comforting. He just went back to clenching and unclenching his right hand, again muttering about 'writing the memoirs...before this fucking...thing takes away my...memory.' It was his attempt at sarcasm, a hard thing from someone like himself. He'd been laying in the bed for a month or so, only moving to change the wrappings or his shorts, the only things he wore.  
  
For some reason, neither one seemed to mind.  
  
Tilting to the side, his head hit her shoulder and his hand groped around. It found hers and he squeezed, just to assure himself she was there and he wasn't seeing things. "Tifa... Tell me..." He mouth worked, then stopped. His brow furrowed. 'Come on. You know the fucking words, just make yourself say them.'  
  
She seemed to be in an encouraging, though not mocking, mood. "Tell you what?"  
  
Turning his neck as far as he could, he hid his eyes in the soft spot of her shoulder. "...Tell me...you'll stay with me until...I'm better..." He wanted her to stay longer than that, and for some reason, she wanted to stay longer than that. And she probably would.  
  
Lifting her other hand, she rested it on the back of his head and tried her hardest to ignore the hot, damp spot forming on her shoulder. She even closed her eyes, just out of curteousy as she told him she promised she would.  
  
She didn't dare look at him.  
  
No one had seen the infamous Rufus ShinRa cry.  
  
And she wasn't going to be the first, especially on Christmas. 


	6. 1 For Aelyin

Author's Note: These are my Christmas presents to the various friends I can't send mail to. They will be posted throughout Christmas day -- probably now, if you're reading this -- or all at once if I finish them all before then.  
  
So, Merry Christmas, and enjoy your read.  
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Reno's Sack of Gifts 5  
by Reno Spiegel  
Dante@towernetwork.net  
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For some reason, Vincent loved coffee houses.  
  
And for some reason just as unknown, Cid despised them. "Tea's the way to go," he continually reprimanded his, dare he say, friend.  
  
Since Meteor four years ago, Vincent had found himself at Cid Highwind's place. He had been the last dropped off from the airship because he was debating where to go. Well, Cid had eventually gone home and told him to stay with him for a while, until he figured something out.  
  
What Vincent had figured out was that the Highwinds -- now plural because of Cid and Shera marrying -- were, dare he as well say, fun. Shera had an odd obsession with cooking, and the ex-Turk found he enjoyed it as much as she did. She had the most unusual recipes, too, but he always went along with it.  
  
And on the other end of the pair, Cid was very willing to teach Vincent the properties of almost anything he had in the garage. The garage was, truly, what Cid's name was for what everyone else knew as Rocket Town. So the red-eyed man, a bit more talkative because of his environment, could make key-lime pie as well as he could hear your engine and tell you how much of what to put in where.  
  
He was very useful.  
  
Of course, then the tabloids had come up with some stories. In Cid's exact words: "Motherfuckin' -- son of a -- JESUS, Vince, they think we're ass-fuck-buddies!" And indeed they did. A rain of headlines that described a hot affair right in front of Shera's eyes had surfaced, one they strung along just to see what would happen.  
  
This being Vincent's statement to one group of reporters: "I am not obligated to release such information, and even if I were, I would not even know where to begin." The next day, they announced his statement as a "Hot Confession of Hidden Desires."  
  
For some reason, he and Cid laughed so hard they had started to tear up.  
  
And so it was this reason they were chittering away in a coffee house, Vincent with his usual mocha and Cid with a thermos of tea he always brought with him. It was one of those very style-based places, with spiral wire holding up glass tables and booths with cave-paintings on the side.  
  
They had just hit the topic of what to teach next in their automobile class -- they had to make gil somehow -- when a regretful-looking young girl walked over. She was continually looking back toward a group of snickering kids in a booth across the room. She leaned in real close and whispered.  
  
"I'm SO sorry about this, but...my friends want to know if the rumours are true."  
  
The men needed no more motivation. In two seconds they had crossed the room in long strides and were bearing down on the overly-curious friends of the girl questioning them. Cid growled out the obvious question. "Which one'f ya's the curious fuck?"  
  
A boy, no older than sixteen, raised his hand. He was obviously regretting his previous decision, and even moreso showing this when he whimpered. Of course, Cid had just reached over and hauled him off his chair onto the floor by the lapels of his button-up shirt, but that wasn't the point.  
  
Vincent took this one, and knelt down next to him. He got maybe three inches from his ear and spoke quite loudly and clearly, this accented by the demon Chaos that still resided dormantly inside of him. Cid said the same, leaning as close as possible to his other ear.  
  
"WE ARE NOT A FUCKING COUPLE!!!" they bellowed.  
  
The boy would not be able to hear much of anything for the next five minutes, including the door slamming harder than it had ever been slammed before as the two men, definately not a fucking couple, made their leave into the Christmas air. 


	7. 1 For Tonya

Author's Note: These are my Christmas presents to the various friends I can't send mail to. They will be posted throughout Christmas day -- probably now, if you're reading this -- or all at once if I finish them all before then.  
  
So, Merry Christmas, and enjoy your read.  
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Reno's Sack of Gifts 6  
by Reno Spiegel  
Dante@towernetwork.net  
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.  
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Even Reno had some sense of decency when it came to this.  
  
This being Junon. At eleven at night on Christmas, looking out into the sea from possibly the only open coastline in the city -- the rest had those big power poles through the water -- there was just enough light from the city to make the view almost nice.  
  
I mean, if you can ignore the smog, I suppose Junon is nice all the time.  
  
Reno himself was in the back of the Turk van, a rusted old piece of black metal on wheels. The back doors were thrown wide and he was laying on a checker-printed beanbag chair they had thrown in there for comfort. The radio was on, tuned to a late-night Public Access channel he was half-listening to. The other half of his mind was on the splashes he once-in-a while heard from the sea.  
  
Though they were spawned from Mako, some things just added to the effect.  
  
"And tonight," said the announcer on the radio, "we have a new segment called Divine Intervention, just for the holidays. Now in the studio with me are two very special siblings. Tell us again what your names are."  
  
The Turk knew this would take awhile. He opened another beer.  
  
"Well," said a male voice, "my name is God."  
  
'Jesus Christ,' he thought, no pun intended.  
  
A woman was next. "And my name is Jesus."  
  
'...definately no pun intended.'  
  
The announcer came back on. He seemed falsely curious. "Yes, this is true. We have the birth certificates here at the station. But I'm quite curious as to why your parents gave you these names. Was it some sort of an act of God?"  
  
God himself spoke. "We are convinced so. Something told our parents that we were to be named God and Jesus, and that's exactly what they did. We believe we have been put here as some...assignment from the heavens. What we've been put here to do, however, we're not quite sure. But we do believe the Lord will make it so."  
  
Jesus was about to speak, and would have, if Reno hadn't shut the door, climbed up front, and hit the second radio preset button. His personal favorite, KPIS. Or, for the regulat listeners, K-Piss. Of course, with a name like that, what would they play besides non-stop hard rock. He turned the volume up so fast that it went mute for a second, then the guitars and drums started blasting away again.  
  
Turning the van on, he gunned it, sand spurting up behind the tires before they caught and the vehicle lurched forward, then settling into its normal speed. There was a good five-hundred-yards of coastline here, which is what he wanted. Flooring it, he bounced around on every little bump, his glasses raising off the dashboard more than a few times.  
  
Some people would call him an idiot.  
  
"Nothing to worry about," he told himself. He wasn't drunk. Rock just did this to him, and there was a lot of it around. "This thing's so heavy that --"  
  
Ten minutes later, he was hearing about how Jesus had been shunned her entire childhood, himself giving Tseng directions.  
  
Then again, there's no better way to spend Christmas night than in an overturned van with God. 


	8. 2 For Shaddeh

First in this year's six-part Christmas series, posted a bit early because I'm going out of town for two weeks as of tomorrow. Enjoy. 

( Yes, I know it's not FFVII, but. . .that's, like, one in twelve. That's a fuckin' ratio. I'd appreciate it if no asshole reported me. )

-

Reno's Sack of Gifts 2.1

by

Reno Spiegel

-

He didn't ask to come into the room; it wasn't like he ever had, though.

Tidus rolled over and pretended he was sleeping; he was terrible at it, admittedly, but maybe just this once, Auron would respect that he wanted a bit of privacy. Maybe the news he'd just gotten about Jecht being Sin would give him the right to a few minutes alone.

"You've always been bad at that."

Or, maybe not.

Tidus rolled over to face him, but didn't look anywhere but at his boots. "Yeah, so what?"

They'd stopped to rest at Rin's Travel Agency, even if Wakka was none too happy about it. The Mi'ihen Highroad had been a trek to remember, though, and the Besadian had finally surrendered and decided it was easier to just let them have their way. Lulu said he'd been asleep in minutes.

Auron's lip quirked up beneath his coat's collar. "You've a lot to live for nowadays, don't you? You have to solve the mystery of Zanarkand. . .you have to keep Jecht under control. . .you have her."

"What's that supposed to mean?!" he yelled, finally looking his superior guardian in the sunglasses. He was getting frustrated with the lack of privacy and professionalism in their party, as well as all the accusations toward himself. Sure, there was something minor between he and the summoner, but he still didn't have to respond well to everyone's badgering.

The red-clad man laughed. "Perhaps I meant your mother? If Jecht is here, I see no reason sh --"

"Go away!" shouted Tidus, thrusting his face into the pillow as if that would take him back home. "I don't care what you say! I'm not staying here!"

Auron shrugged, freed his arm of its mock-sling, and opened the door. "Suit yourself. I will fight your fight."

As he left the room, Tidus' head raised. He could have sworn, as the door was closing, the older man had muttered, "Crybaby." The blonde almost screamed through the door at him, but at that moment, a cry rose up: "Help! Help! The chocobos!"

Before he knew it, he was off the bed, sword in hand, and running out the door. So what if he'd practically switched worlds. So what if his father and his friends were still calling him a crybaby.

He'd show 'em. . .

. . .for her.


	9. 2 For Tio

Second in this year's six-part Christmas series, posted a bit early because I'm going out of town for two weeks as of tomorrow. Enjoy.

-

Reno's Sack of Gifts 2.2

by

Reno Spiegel

-

The Planet was a very tolerable place nowadays. After Meteor, a new company had risen in ShinRa's wake, led by a group of technically-educated teens from Junon who, one day, came into the ShinRa Building's remains and found Emmerson Reeve. They handed over a briefcase of papers including new, better plans for the city, their goals as a new company, and in a few days Reeve stepped down.

Unlike Robert and Rufus ShinRa, they had yet to break their promise. The plate had been rebuilt, but without so much restriction. Around and inside the slums, looking as fancy as above the plate, grass and flowers grew. Children played, the crime was immediately and almost completely nil, and the company itself was thriving. Half the executive staff weren't of legal age and none of them could legally drink, but they were doing a hell of a lot better than last time.

The Turks, dropped with ten years' pay in cold, hard cash because their work didn't correspond with the wishes of the new company, moved themselves to Costa del Sol with a few friends and bought the villa. Reno was tanner than he'd thought he could be, Rude spoke as often as anyone, and Elena had toughened into the woman they knew she could be. With them had come Reeve, Scarlet, and Yuffie, who didn't feel like going back to Wutai and had never had a personal grudge anyway.

"Hey, Reno!"

The shirtless man in question whipped his head toward the call. Before he could focus on whoever had shouted at him, a volleyball spiked at his face laid him flat. He would be pleased, later, when he heard that Consuela, the local barmaid, returned it for a point. At the moment, though, he was being hefted easily to his feet by a large bald man and then shoved toward Yuffie, who had obviously called for him.

She was sitting by the bonfire, a ritual at their weekend beach-parties, while Elena cooked away at the grill, unable to join the games because of her seven months of pregnancy so far. Reno had joked it was his for the first week until she and Rude had sat him down and told him a story involving things he'd rather not know his big friend could do. A month after that, they had a triple-wedding and the town had taken a shining to them.

Reno thrust down onto the sand next to her. "Yeah?" he asked, still reeling. The game played on without him.

Yuffie crawled over and laid down on him, head on his shoulder. "Whassat?" she queried childishly, grabbing his hand and pointing both their fingers toward the ocean.

The partiers were doing everything by moonlight, torches, and the light from their giant fire. He saw only water at first, then focused and saw what she meant. Far off on the horizon, a glow rose up and seemed to infect a cluster of rainclouds, travelling up said rain. They looked like sparks being dripped into a puddle. "More'n likely, that's Junon. It's not real pretty when you're there, but from here, it looks really cool when it rains. If you stood at the edge of the plate in Midgar, you could see it a lot better. That's the shit that keeps me sane, babe."

She was tapping their wedding rings together now. Two silver bands; nothing more, and two in a set of six. Reeve and Scarlet had theirs, as well as Elena and Rude. "Why Lander, Re?"

He smiled, knowing what she was getting at. At the mass wedding, they'd all taken the name Lander and gotten rings that were direct replicas of their fallen comrade, Tseng's. He'd never been married, but that ring kept him tied to Wutai. They'd taken them from six slots in a mohogany case, set in a velvet insert, and hadn't taken them off since, a sign of unity. "Used to be Tseng's name." He could almost feel her grimace. "C'mon, he wasn't a bad guy. It's the lifestyle, y'know? He was just like all of us, but he had a few too many years invested in pretending to be a cold-hearted drone."

Yuffie snuggled farther into him. "Mm." She paused for a moment, then said, "Are you happy here in Costa?"

His smile widened. "Yeah, definitely. I mean, I wouldn't mind being in Mideel, but two things keep me from that."

"Like what?"

"One,":he started, using one hand to get himself a cigarette and a lighter, "is that it'd get so damn boring. I love the place, trust me. I grew up there, I always went exploring, I went through high school there. But as an adult. . .it'd make a decent retirement place, but Costa's got it beat there, too." He lit the smoke and put the lighter away. "That and, since high school, I've been legally banned. Started a fight with a shopkeep. Unity's real big there; fuck with them, they'll fuck with you."

She lifted her head and grinned widely. "Reno, do I ask too many questions?"

He kissed her forehead and shook his head. "No, not at all. On a completely unrelated topic, I promise," he said, standing up and brushing the sand from his shorts, "that is also the answer to any other yes or no questions you may have. Saves us the time." He knocked on her head and started away.

She sat up, determined to have the last word. "Reno!" He turned. "Does that still apply if I were to ask if you loved me?"

He paused, smiled impossibly wider, and shook his head. "That might be the one exception, actually." When she asked just how much of an exception, he walked back over, kissed her, and showed her.


	10. 2 For D Angel

Third in this year's six-part Christmas series, posted a bit early because I'm going out of town for two weeks as of tomorrow. Enjoy.

-

Reno's Sack of Gifts 2.3

by

Reno Spiegel

-

They saw each other from down the street, even with all the people milling about. Neither acted as though they'd seen each other, however, until they brushed shoulders. They then swung around, facing each other in defensive positions.

"I suppose," said the man, "this is where we draw our guns and pace backward."

She shrugged nonchalantly. "Unless neither of us has a gun. I, as you can see, have no gun." She patted the shorts that couldn't possibly hide a gun, then the tanktop that couldn't, either.

He looked pointedly at the shorts and tanktop she had motioned to. Then he looked again. He continued looking and grinning until she gave him the "up here" look that all men understand, then stared her in the eyes. "That has you at a disadvantage, then!" he exclaimed.

"You have a gun?" She sounded genuinely surprised. He didn't seem to be the type to carry a firearm.

He smirked. "Is that a polite way of asking if that's a gun in my pocket or if I'm just happy to see you?"

Her eye twitched. "Bite me, Turkey."

Reno hugged her like a happy drunk. "Love you, too, babe. Lunch, on me?"

"Do you have a gun?" Yuffie asked skeptically, though it's all up to speculation whether she just wanted to prove herself right or just. . .make sure he didn't have a gun.

He shrugged. "Nope."

She smiled and offered him her hand. "I'd love to."


	11. 2 For Drakonlily

Fourth in this year's six-part Christmas series, posted a bit early because I'm going out of town for two weeks as of tomorrow. Enjoy. 

( This was fun; a choose-your-own-characters thing. I just figure they won't take too kindly to an original story, so choose some characters to go in here. )

-

Reno's Sack of Gifts 2.4

by

Reno Spiegel

-

It had become a game between them. A twisted, sick game that only she seemed to find fun. One day she would find him. He would kill her again, and the process would repeat. She was sadistic with love, that's what it was.

The first time, she'd come home drunk and tried to sleep with him. When he would have none of it, she got violent and began to beat him -- her excuse was that he was beautiful, but oh so selfish for trying to hide that from the rest of the world -- but he retaliated with a watermelon to her head. When she woke up next, he was burying her alive, and she caught his eyes before a pile of mud caught hers.

After three days, she'd freed herself and the chase began.

He'd tried to drown her, bury her again, even strand her in the desert bound and gagged. He refused to call the police, because that would almost guarantee she would be alive. Changes of clothes, haircuts, wearing a cloak -- none of it worked on her. It was the night at the bar it finally ended. He was just talking to some friends from the office when she walked up behind him, spun his stool around, and thrust her tongue down his throat.

There was a brief scuffle before the first glass broke, right into her scarred and blood-stained face. When he ran, she began throwing plates at him like flying discs. He dodged all but one, which caught his hand as he tried to open the door, and he instinctively drew back.

It was enough.

In less than a second, she'd hurled herself at him, throwing them both against a table. He grabbed another glass as said table tipped over, this time violently thrusting it into her eyes, cutting his hand. Shards of glass stuck in her face, one dangerously close to her right eye, she looked at him with the most pitiful, loving smile he'd ever seen. "You don't understand how much I love you!!" she wailed, before latching her teeth onto his neck.

He howled and threw her off, losing skin in the process. She landed in the position a doll might, legs spread wide and looking dejected. He tried to run for it again, but he hadn't seen the steak knife she'd picked up. Again, when he was almost out the door, the knife nailed his hand and pinned it to the frame. His head turned just in time to be caught by one of her pumps.

His head hit the wall with a wet slapping sound, and she kicked him again, driving his nose into the wood. Before he could even gather his thoughts, her hands were in his hair, pulling, pushing, pulling again. He saw the red mark that his face had made on the wall and pulled his hand free, slicing the flesh from the middle of his palm all the way to the place between his middle and ring fingers.

She kicked him again, harder this time, and his head hit the wall as he screamed at the pain in his hand.

He stopped screaming and she collapsed against his back.

She stopped screaming, too.


	12. 2 For Azora

Fifth in this year's six-part Christmas series, posted a bit early because I'm going out of town for two weeks as of tomorrow. Enjoy.

-

Reno's Sack of Gifts 2.5

by

Reno Spiegel

-

Rufus ShinRa was swamped, and that was the nice way to put it. His In pile was growing a lot larger than his Out, and half of these people didn't even know what they were talking about, especially that one guy that wanted company money to look for treasure on the beach. Oh, sure, he had an explanation, but Rufus supposed those at the mental institution would have a different one.

It was no surprise, then, that his door opening was replied to with a terse, "If you want money, get out of my office. Otherwise, put your business in the In tray." He waved a hand at it without looking up from a plea to expand the parking lot so at least one row of cars might be safe from Reno.

He was a bit surprised to notice neither happened, and then looked up. There stood who was probably his favorite associate, Scarlet Chassity. She'd been on his good side so far, and he didn't see reason to transfer her to his bastard side. He put his pen down for a moment, took in the red dress she wore tonight, and brushed his bangs back. "To what do I owe this visit?"

"Can you take a break for a while?" She glanced around, as if asking that was taboo. "There's something I'd like you to see."

He was a bit skeptical at first, but when he saw how nervous she looked, he realized something must've happened. He left the office with her and allowed her to lead him outside and down the street. He supposed Junon was the nicest at night, when it was drizzling just enough to make the roadss wet and the streetlights a bit brighter in the fog. He followed Scarlet at a distance, but they didn't walk for long.

The weapons specialist hoisted herself over a guardrail and made the short drop to the top of their giant cannon, the Sister Ray. He followed suit, more slowly than her because of his bulky attire, but caught up with her at the end of the cannon. Just before he got to ask why she was taking him here, she knelt down and climbed the ladder inside of the barrel. Once again, he had no alternative but to follow her inside.

The rope itself was very thin wood; enough to support a human being, but also flimsy enough to be destroyed if and when the cannon was fired. It was more for maintenance workers than anything else, and understandably so. No one really wanted to stand in the direct path of a three-hundred-foot cannon. He climbed off of the ladder, relieved to see she was just standing there and wouldn't make him chase her anymore.

"Now that we've violated at least ten safety procedures," he said, brushing himself off, "what is it you need to show me?"

She looked at him like a kid asking what sex is looks at her mother, then gently grabbed his hand, walked a few paces in front of him, and turned him around.

It became obvious what she wanted him to see.

Rufus hadn't gotten much time to look out the windows of his office in this city, and he suddenly realized what he was missing. Red lights of ships coming in and going out glittered across the water, captains shouted back and forth like old friends reuniting, the moon cast a strange glow over the entire harbor, and, inside the cannon where the lights weren't as powerful, he could see every star in the sky and their reflections below him.

"Remember," she said softly, "that time at the Gold Saucer, when you told me I was a good person?" He nodded without looking at her, and if he had, he would've seen how lost she seemed. "You showed me the beauty of knowing myself again. I realized last night that I've never showed you any beauty at all."

It was a full minute before he acted, and when he did, he slipped his arms around her shoulders and let her lean back into him. To him, tonight, she wasn't the devil in a red dress. She was Scarlet, the blonde employee afraid of her fleeting grip on her own life, the girl allergic to the cafeteria's baked beans. He turned her around, not forcefully at all, and looked her in the eyes.

Brushing a strand of hair behind her ear, he smiled and shook his head. "You really have no idea, do you?"


	13. 2 For JessAngel

Sixth in this year's six-part Christmas series, posted a bit early because I'm going out of town for two weeks as of tomorrow. Enjoy.

-

Reno's Sack of Gifts 2.6

by

Reno Spiegel

-

"Rufus! Hey, Ruf, dude!"

Elena's head hit the table. Of all the things she'd wanted especially not to happen, Reno showing up at this restaraunt was at the top of the list in flaming letters.

And there he was, in a jacket glittering with rainbow sequins and huge, novelty sunglasses, making his way loudly to their table. Once there, he slapped his good hand down right next to her wineglass, nearly tipping over the candle in the middle of the table. "Laney, baby! You two're actually here!"

The newest Turk gave him a 'Please die' look, but he seemed totally unfazed. She mentally ran down the path here: She'd accidentally bumped into a strange man who turned out to be President Rufus ShinRa, asked him for a date, went on a tour of the city with Reno the slacker, and had been trying on her outfit for the date and not expected him to show up when he did just that. She had to admit, he had timing.

"Rufus, man. I mean, shit. Can you believe the rookie? Ain't she amazing? Gave me an afternoon to remember."

Rufus, wearing his rarely-donned black suit with a silver tie, folded his hands calmly and said, "Is Tseng aware of the guard duty you're more than likely shirking right now?"

The redhead didn't seem to casual anymore. In fact, his face had lost a bit of color.

"Let's see, then, if you can make it back to the office in ten minutes. I believe it'll take me that long to remember I had a very urgent message to give you that I'll insist he deliver personally." He smiled thinly. "Or you can stand here, test my patience, and incur the wrath of me rather than Tseng when the hammer comes down. As you decide, I'll go back to dinner with my lovely new acquaintance here."

Elena flushed as Rufus turned back to her. Reno was already off and running, swinging his sling at anyone who dared to get in his way.

The president shook his head. "You'll have to get used to that. I don't think Rude will ever recover from his first run-in with Third Wheel Drannor." He stood quickly, checked his watch, and pointed at the dance floor. "In three minutes, they're going to announce our names and we're going to have to tango. It said in your application you tango."

She stood up shakily and nodded. "Y - yeah, I do."

"Good," he replied, offering his arm. "My first demand as your employer is that you teach me within three minutes."

Elena's jaw dropped. She had a feeling this wasn't going to be a regular desk job.


	14. 3 For Zoe

1Probably the most stressful load of Christmas stories I've done yet, but done they are! Merry Christmas, y'all. Here's to a new slate in the new year.

". . .Three hours."

Reno looked at his feet and moved his shoe back and forth. When Rufus wasn't smiling, he sure as hell wasn't supposed to smile. He hoped the rookie had enough sense to do the same thing.

Rude was looking up. What was Rufus going to do, attack him? Rude could have spit on the boy's coat, and through more than a little restraint, the president would've ultimately chosen not to lash out at him. That was a perk of being a huge man on antidepressants. People didn't mess with him too much.

"We clocked in at five P.M. It is now seven-fifty-three P.M. Tseng, if you would. . .how long is that?"

The Wutain man instantly said, "Three hours." This wasn't his fault. He had no reason to be ashamed and keep his mouth shut. He was in the clear, A-okay, let's go get some drinks and feel better about ourselves, Boss. "Roughly."

"Then, Reno, if you would. . .given the fact it's been three hours. . .explain to me **how the hell you fucked this up already!**"

Reno didn't much feel like explaining how he'd fucked this up already. In fact, one of the main reasons he didn't want to explain how he'd fucked this up already was that he'd fucked it up over the period of three hours on a whim that would take about five seconds to explain. When you were dealing with the strawberry-blonde boy he was dealing with, you had a tendency to realize this: If you took three hours to fuck something up, it'd better take you three _more_ to explain _why_.

And it'd better be good.

"Judging by your silence, either you don't know what you've done wrong, or else you did it on a whim, which is usually the case. Turn around, Reno."

Reno didn't understand why this was all his fault. Elena had done her fair share, and Rude had. . .yelled at them to stop, but that was another story. But there was still Elena, and the fact of the matter was that _he_ was getting treated like the dog, and _his_ nose was getting rubbed in _their_ shit.

And this was a big pile of it.

In some kind of craze, Elena and Reno had harmlessly begun pillow-fighting, which escalated into a war. Complete with forts and feather-bombs. Said feathers were thrown over the entire hotel room, the curtains had been torn to shreds in Elena's attempt to rig up a pulley system, one of the beds was flipped over and against the corner to provide shelter, and somehow, a bullet had gone through the window. He honestly couldn't recall who'd taken their gun out – probably Rude. The crimson couch was tipped against the opposite corner – sheet-pulley still attached to it – the tops of the tables were scratched to all hell from sliding across the floor on them, pretending they were desert combat vehicles, and there was beer all over the walls.

When they'd run out of feathers within reach, they'd opened cans and begun throwing them like grenades.

This was obviously why Reno's mother had wanted him to mature.

Reno took all of this in without a hitch in his breath, but he could feel the look in Rufus' eyes, even if he hadn't looked into them once yet. It, needless to say, was not a happy look. "Elena," he said quietly. "Where is the ceiling fan?"

She tried not to laugh, and leaned toward her partner in crime. "In the shower." There was a pause. "Don't ask."

Rufus, the voice above everyone else's, said, "You are quite lucky I don't shoot you now. We check out tomorrow, at ten A.M. If this isn't all fixed by then, I may reconsider." Without another word, he left the room, slamming the door behind him.

The three looked at each other. No one seemed sure of what to say. They could either clean this up and fix what they'd broken, or they. . .no, there wasn't another option. Rude pulled a chair over to the wall and sat down with his newspaper, tossing the car keys into the air.

The blonde snatched them out of the air. No way was she going to let a slightly-inebriated, unkempt, redheaded – not to mention possibly suicidal at the present moment – Turk drive around the icy roads of Junon.

He'd be way too cautious.

They got back within an hour, with arms full of things to help the repair effort, to find Rude happily watching television. This was, of course, interrupted by Reno loudly screaming things at his companion – all along the lines of "**YOU'RE NEVER DRIVING AGAIN, YOU FUCKING PSYCHO!** Rude then went to the bar to get rid of his headache.

"So where do we start?" Reno was by no means gifted in the art of fixing things. He just trashed buildings, changed his name, and moved out of town. It'd always worked before. Either that or he put the blame on Rude. No one ever said, "Bad Rude!"

Elena peered into his bag. They'd gone shopping on opposite ends of the store and hoped to Holy the other one knew what they were doing. Judging by the mass of snack food on the top, Reno apparently didn't. He shifted it aside and grinned widely up at the blonde. ". . .Reno, why did you buy fifty rolls of duct tape?"

"Twenty." He sounded proud. He was smiling.

Elena rubbed her temples. It was going to be a long night.

…

Around three the following morning, though there was no sign of Rude, everything seemed to be in order. Elena had fixed the couch, replaced the tables, rewired the ceiling fan, scrubbed the beer off the walls, and vacuumed up what she hoped were all the feathers. Reno had. . .fixed the curtain.

Kind of.

He'd sat there for hours, on the floor, making giant curtains out of duct tape. Elena would have yelled at him for it, but for one, he'd bought the tape himself, and for another, he just looked so damned passionate about it. That and he wasn't talking. Reno not talking was a good thing, in her eyes.

She stood back and looked at the room as he put the curtain up. It looked repaired, at least. She made it a point to remind herself, before they left, to leave a note and some gil for a _real _curtain. She just didn't want to break the guy's heart.

**SNAP.**

The way his face fell when the curtain rod itself broke, though, was more than a little amusing. He must've failed his physics class; a flimsy wooden rod could not hold forty pounds of duct tape.

"Fuckbeans."

Elena, too, excused herself to the bar, and collapsed laughing in the hallway.

…

Reno met them an hour later, looking far too pleased with himself, and somehow managed to escape the subject every time she brought it up. Instead, he treated them to an early-morning breakfast at a local restaurant, one he'd gone to a few years ago, and the entire group was ready to leave just shy of nine A.M.

Once in the helicopter and on the way back to Midgar, Elena flipped her headset to Reno's frequency, immediately assaulted with heavy metal music. With enough yelling, she got him onto a quieter channel, and asked, "So did you go buy a real curtain?"

He lit up a smoke. If the instruments failed, he knew where he'd stashed an extra lifejacket. "Hell no. I used the five rolls I had left over and taped the son of a bitch right to the wall."

There was a moment of silence. "Reno, they have wallpaper there. It'll rip right off with that much tape on it."

Reno smiled again and slung an arm around her shoulders. "Merry fuckin' Christmas, rookie."


	15. 3 For Grant

1Probably the most stressful load of Christmas stories I've done yet, but done they are! Merry Christmas, y'all. Here's to a new slate in the new year.

The second I walked in, I knew there was some reason I shouldn't have been there.

"Oi! Whos'sat?"

Maybe it was because the fucker was an idiot.

I lit a cigarette and looked at him, sitting in the corner, whittling away on this stick. Hell of a long stick. If I weren't in a rush, I'd ask him if he was compensating. I pointed my cigarette at him. "The name's Elena, and I wanna be a Turk."

He squinted at me. Still whittling. That was annoying. "I ain't ShinRa, Missy. You got the wrong guy."

Yeah. I remember thinking just how intelligent he must've been at that point. I took a drag, because I knew I'd need it, and repeated myself: "I wanna be a Turk. I need something to do it with. You make weapons. Hook me up." They tell me that if you spell simple shit like that out to people, they'll understand. He did, thank God.

He laughed. "Oh, Missy, y'got it all wrong. I don' sell weapons. 'Ma blacksmith."

I looked around. He had an assload of weapons hanging on the walls. Maybe this was some squatter and the real, legendary weapons dealer was. . .in Costa. Or something. Hell, if he was in Costa, he was probably in the hotel next to my apartment. "Blacksmith, weapons dealer, whatever. What about all the stuff on the walls?"

"Don' sell 'em!"

He sounded goddamn chipper about it. "Wha. . .you're a _weapons dealer_. You _deal_ in _weapons_.Right?"

He smiled at me. I knew what he was trying to say. "I don' believe in violence, Missy. Conscientious objector. An' that means I don' sell 'em to people, neither. I jus' make 'em 'cause they look nice on th'walls.

I motioned at the walls, more than aggravated. "You're saying there's_ nothing _in here that you'll sell? Not one bit of it?"

The guy was still whittling at that moment, but he stopped, set his stuff down, and looked as happy as a kid in a candy store, like he'd just gotten this fantastic idea. "Jus' about forgot. One second." He stood up and disappeared around the corner for a second. I just hoped he didn't come back with a pea-shooter or something.

. . .Nope. He came back with a box of chocolates.

Smiling real wide.

"Act'chly, I'm gonna be a chocolate-maker, too! Y'want a free box? Firs' one." He wagged the box at me, the nervy fucker.

I've never slammed a door harder.


	16. 3 For Sabriel

1Probably the most stressful load of Christmas stories I've done yet, but done they are! Merry Christmas, y'all. Here's to a new slate in the new year.

It was hot; a lot hotter than she ever thought she'd planned to climb a mountain in. But it had been hot the last time she'd come here, too, and with her roots in Costa, it was hard to actuallycomplain about heat. But she liked to think she'd never been here before. Last time. . .she didn't like to think about it.

The sun was on its way to going down when they reached the top, which only made it hotter. Behind her, Reno was complaining as per usual – "Why're we going all the way up here again?", "My feet hurt!", "You'd better hope this is worth it, Legs."

Their guide, Yuffie, smacked him when they'd conquered the final climb. "Stop calling me Legs, you perv!" she yelled, showing off her age. Elena and Rude kept their distance, taking in the rather unimpressive patch of open rock they'd stopped on. Sure, it was the top of Da-Chao and all, but. . . They exchanged a look, a look that said neither one was trusting this one as far as they could throw it.

"Fire!"

Yuffie ran over to a pile of wood and dragged it, with some difficulty, over toward the Turks, looking up like she expected some help.

Having a week off for some reason or another, the Turks had decided to visit Turtle's Paradise, their collectively favorite bar, and stay in town for a few days. Reno said he just wanted to make the locals nervous, but Elena knew he actually liked the place. His file said he'd spent a lot of time there as a child.

They'd found Yuffie Kisaragi, plastered at the bar, who promised to take them to the top of the mountains the next night. When Reno confronted her later, she didn't remember it, but he held her to it just to be a dick. He didn't _really _care about the view from the mountains.

And so, here they were.

Rude nudged past the blonde and started helping Yuffie with the wood, which was more than an easy task for him. In a few minutes, he'd actually built the entire fire, and the ninja – ever true to her colors – pulled out her materia and started it the modern way.

They sat in a circle around it, for lack of anything else to do, and Reno pulled out his flask. Whenever he came to a new town, he would demand they put the hardest liquor they had in it, and most of the time, he got what he wanted. "Y'all gonna join me for a round?" he asked after drawing from it, tossing it over to Rude. He'd barely gotten a drink out of it before Yuffie snatched it out of his hands and took her own – apparently along with what he hadn't gotten. When she was done and getting glared at by the redhead, she tossed it to Elena.

She stared at it, wondering if she really wanted to start drinking. Though, she was a lightweight. . .she could probably just take –

"Fuck's sake, Rookie, either drink or pass it!" He smiled when he said it, though. If she was going to drink, it wouldn't be because he told her to.

"So what've you Turkeys been up to?" chirped the Wutain. She'd made herself at home against Rude's shoulder. She'd had enough of that stuff to know what it was and how much would make her do what. Elena hadn't, but she took a sip for the hell of it.

They exchanged stories for a while, passing the alcohol until it was empty – that is, until the next time it got to Yuffie.

Reno couldn't take his eyes off the pair across the logs for too long, though. There was something serene about it. The serious AVALANCHE member, these days with real reasons for being so mad at her father, and the gentle giant of a Turk next to her, staring at a fire. As soon as those two started muttering between themselves, he leaned over to Elena and pointed it out.

"Yeah, I saw it, too. Kind of. . ."

Reno held up a hand. "Don't you even bring that word up when it comes to Rude, you got me?"

She grinned. "What? Cute?" She laughed when Reno feigned a seizure, and smacked him on the foot to make him sit up. "C'mon, Reno. You have to admit – it sort of works."

He refused to admit it. Never before tonight had it occurred to him that, someday, Rude would go off and have a family with someone. Well, no, he'd thought of that much. But what he hadn't thought of was that, after that happened, he wouldn't be _needed_ anymore. Rude would be married. The kids would need him. Reno would be doing the same old daily grind, maybe Elena if she didn't get snatched up by the president or somebody, and then he'd be the lone wolf.

He'd never seen himself getting married. The rumors going around that he was the king of one-nighters were complete bullshit. He drank, he went home, he went to bed, he woke up with his cat, Voodoo, at his feet, and then he spent the morning sharing a bottle of milk with it and complaining about the office in its direction. He didn't think it was a lonely life, really. He spent enough time at the office that he didn't dwell on it too much.

Even so, he was only at the office because, to be honest, he liked the people he worked with. When they got too old for it, had something else to do, and weren't there anymore, it'd be back to Voodoo and him. Commitment was a fantasy. Unintentionally he'd been avoiding the concept so he wouldn't leave the big bald man alone with his desk and empty house.

"Hey, Re?" He shook himself from it and looked at the blonde. "You alright?"

Immediately he was back to himself. "Oh, you'd know if I wasn't alright. You'd be having a really bad day yourself."

She shook her head with a scoff.

"Waitwaitwaitwaitwait! Look, Turkeys, there it is! C'mere!" Yuffie grabbed Rude by the hand and pulled him around the fire. To humor her, Reno and Elena turned to see what it was she was getting so excited about. They were still waiting to see what was so great about this place.

And there it was. Hell, Reno was impressed.

They hadn't noticed it before, but she'd built the flames up very close to the edge of Da-Chao, and there was a reason for it. Looking down to where the ninja was pointing, they saw the entire cliff glittering, as if lit from within, in the sunset. Faces of Wutain gods, shining over the little town, as if they possessed all the knowledge and riches in the world.

"That," Reno said after a moment, pointing with a cigarette that Elena hadn't seen him light, "is fuckin' cool. What is it?"

Yuffie smiled. She had figured this would catch their attention. "Back in the war, Godo realized we had an assload of gil sitting around and nowhere to hide it from ShinRa in case we lost. So he put most of it into diamonds from a mythril cave we found a little ways away, and renovation on Da-Chao started immediately. We called it a project to power us through the war, but we were really hiding a lot of diamonds in the mountain. The town never decided to take them out, mostly because we could get attacked anytime, and when we became a port town, we made enough to pull us out of the economic slump. This is Wutai's little secret, you could say."

The redhead kept looking down on it. Normally, as was characteristic of him, he wouldn't have given two looks at it. Tonight, though. . . He flicked his shades on and glanced at his best friend, whose hand was casually on the little Wutain's shoulder.

Tonight, he told himself, he would start appreciating things.


	17. 3 For Spike

1Probably the most stressful load of Christmas stories I've done yet, but done they are! Merry Christmas, y'all. Here's to a new slate in the new year.

"Hey, man, you got a light?"

I turn around, more in shock than anything else. I thought he'd be kidding, but there he is, cigarette in his pursed lips, looking at me like a drag queen.

"Spike, you don't smoke."

We're on our way to a meeting – well, not so much a meeting as a reunion I wanted to go to. From my days on Titan I remember quite a few people, and I've seen many of them in syndicate wars over the year or so I've been a Dragon. Somehow, we managed to arrange a time to meet and a safe place to do it in.

As far as Mao knows, we're on an emergency call.

"Yeah," he says, locking his arms behind his head. "But what the hell, right? If cancer's what kills me, I'll be lucky. You got a light?"

He tagged along because I know the boy absolutely hates sitting around with nothing to do. When he overheard me explaining that I needed to leave immediately, he tailed me out of the building and insisted on coming with me, just for the thrill of it. Dangerous Titan vets in a small room. Tension between some of us. He loves that kind of atmosphere.

I toss him my lighter and he snatches it right out of the air. I admire him for being deft that way. He tried to teach me his fighting style one day, old Bruce Lee moves. 'It's like water,' he'd said, but in the end, I was just too clumsy and went back to the sword.

A glance around at the architecture says where we are. There's no place quite like Vivaldi, Mars. Elegant draperies in the stores, stereo systems playing soft music from the sewer grates, buildings of the old gothic style, looking at times like they're ready to collapse and at others like they might stand forever. After the Gate incident on Earth, a lot of the big-wigs migrated here, bought the city, and turned it into this place.

It's a beautiful place. Very easy on the eyes. Hopefully easy enough to calm down shell-shocked hit men today.

"Oh, yeah. . .hey, Vicious, this stuff ain't bad." Spike's got the cigarette out in front of himself, smirking at it as if it might talk to him any moment. He hands me the lighter back – thank God he didn't throw it, because I would have missed – and takes another drag. I laugh at the coughing fit he goes into.

Part of me feels like a big brother to him, another part says we're nothing but equals, and there's a sliver of me that says we'll end up killing each other before anyone else does. We've always been that way, since I met him. Always vying for the top spot, the pretty girl, the best equipment. We've had our tiffs, but it always comes out the same way: One of us helping the other up and then hitting the bar together later.

I suppose our relationship isn't any stranger than anyone else's, though.

He catches up and looks in front of me, puzzled. I ask him what he's trying to accomplish. "Lookin' for the guy you're muttering at up here. Something tells me I'm not getting your full attention, Viciaso."

I slap him in the chest. "Don't call me that, Spike. Just thinking." Occasionally, I get so lost in concentration that I start thinking aloud. It's a terrible habit. I gave up playing poker because of it, once I realized it.

He hops in front of me and starts walking backward, this big stupid grin plastered on his face. "What's wrong, Vicky?" He dodges my snatch at his collar. "Somethin' up, Vicky? Huh?" The son of a bitch does a backflip to get away from me this time, but we're both laughing. He bellows, "**VICIASO BARTELLI IS AFRAID OF HIS OWN NAME!**" and I actually get ahold of his hair. "Owowowowow! Alright, man, leggo!"

I bring him up to my face for a second, then shove him away. He trips over his big feet and falls. Somehow, that damn cigarette's managed to stay perfectly unharmed, and I'm amused for that as much as his fall. The guy can sneak around and shoot people just fine, but one push to the chest and he goes down.

He kicks out my ankle and we're both on the ground. I don't know whether to laugh or take out my gun and blow that smoke right out of his mouth.

Just wait 'til the vets see this kid.


	18. 3 For Tio

1Probably the most stressful load of Christmas stories I've done yet, but done they are! Merry Christmas, y'all. Here's to a new slate in the new year.

Reno never thought he'd be a married man before he was forced into it, but here he was, Mr. Reno Drannor. He rethought that one. He was. . .a Mr. Reno Drannor. . .to a Mrs. Reno Drannor. . .

'Erm. . .'

Anyway, he and Yuffie had just tied the knot.

He was seriously debating the choice as soon as she said, "Let's go to Icicle Inn for our honeymoon!" But they said the road to a successful marriage was paved with the bodies of other men and women killed in sacrifice ( or something ) so he decided to let it go.

He was on the phone now, telling Elena how much he regretted that. His wife was up ahead, looking at a signpost, trying to find someplace she'd been before. "I don't get it, Laney. You'd think after the Sephiroth business, she'd wanna go someplace warm and relax for a bit. But here we are, in the goddamn tundra, freezing our asses off, and she's looking for somewhere _farther_ down the road to go!"

"I heard that!" she shouted, swinging an arm behind her and failing to point distractedly at him.

"Sorry, _darling_." He sighed into the mouthpiece. "But I suppose I'll go help her out. She's a terrible navigator, and here she is, ready to drag me around some permafreeze. I let her drive my car to the airpost – I said that already, right? Did I tell you where we almost ended up?"

There was a silence.

Reno furrowed his brow. "Laney?"

More silence. He checked the display and realized she'd hung up a few moments ago. "Bitch." He snapped it shut and went to join Yuffie, who was erratically pointing around on the map, muttering to herself, and generally having no idea where she was. "And what exactly are we looking for?"

She turned and smiled at him. "The hot springs!"

Reno checked the map for the **You are here **arrow. He brought up his mental calculations; he'd been here plenty of times before If two plus two still equaled four, then the distance from that post to the hot springs was, theoretically:

'. . .Shit.'

Almost an hour and a half later, Reno was too cold to bitch. He knew that because, about an hour before that, his bitching had been stopped because of it. As Yuffie – little miss I-brought-three-coats-and-you-brought-a-jacket-nyah-nyah – would say later, he 'didn't sound too threatening calling her a 'muuvuer.'' He'd stolen her scarf and was at least warm around his neck, though.

But, alas, there they were at the hot springs. Given the unusually low temperature, the steam blocked most of the view inside the cave, but at least it was warm. They stripped down by the entrance once their nerves regained normal function – Yuffie to the bathing suit she'd apparently slipped into when he wasn't looking, and Reno to his boxers.

"Chocobo print?" The ninja reached over and snapped the waistband, cocking an eyebrow. "Very nice – no cheap silk for you, no, sir."

He glared. "Shut up and get your ass in the water before I remember how far we just walked."

Reno walked back over to the pile of clothes, looking for his cigarettes – she had, in fact, taken _his_ coat, and he remembered them being in his pocket – as she slipped in. A moment later, she was clutching his arm and saying there was a snake in the spring, nearly hanging off his shoulder in fright.

He couldn't help but snicker. "Snakes? Yuffie, snot to the extreme, vanquisher of Sephiroth, ninja extraordinaire, is afraid of reptiles without legs?" She punched him in the side, started shouting about the Zolom she'd had to take down a few years ago – single-handedly, of course – but he brushed it off and walked to the pool with his mag-rod out.

One zap to the water was all it took.

"**AIEEEEESHIIIIIIIIIIT!**"

The couple jumped into the air about two feet, backing away when a rather large mass of. . .something, started floating toward them. Within a few seconds, it hit them both.

Yuffie looked at him, horrified. "Holy, Reno, you just killed Palmer!"

Indeed, that was the big man floating face-down in the hot water, and that high-pitched voice, through its reverberations, was most definitely his. She must have touched his foot getting in, mistaken it for a snake, but it was too cloudy to see who he actually had been. And now, there he was, lying face-down after a shock from Reno, probably dea –

"Fuck, woman, you think that killed him?" His heart was racing, but the redhead was smarter than to get shaken up over this. He hopped into the water and rolled the big man over, slapping him repeatedly in the cheek. "Wake up, you tub! There's no way that hit your heart through all this!" He smacked him in the chest now, watching the wave wobble down his stomach.

Palmer's eye cracked open with a moan, and then he was spluttering around, flailing, as if he couldn't get his footing in the four feet of water there was. Reno helped him to his feet and watched the big man regain his normal breathing pattern. "Reno! Reno! Y-y-you! Wow, that hurt! Wow!" He suddenly started looking around. "Oooooh, I think I dropped my chocolate spread!" He then noticed he was wearing nothing but shorts and took a step back. "Reno! Hi! Long time no see – taking a break from work?"

His eyebrow couldn't have gone higher if it'd needed to as Palmer sat back down on the ledge in the pool. "Palmer, what the fuck are you doing here?" He thought better of that question. "I mean, no, I'm here on my honeymoon." It was then that he saw the rather bewildered look on his wife's face and snapped her out of it. "But, really. . .what the fuck are you doing here?"

"Remember when I got hit by that van!" He sounded so excited about it. The redhead took his own seat, decided also not to ask why Palmer was now scratching his back with the rough end of a chocobo feather. "Well, they told me I could stay on the payroll and recover for as long as I needed, so I've been living here since then. It's great! I get a check to sit in hot water and eat chocolate!"

Yuffie leaned over and muttered in Reno's ear, "Planning to get too fat to get out?"

He slipped his arm around her, half as a shield, have in case he wanted to wring her neck for making him come here. "That's, uh. . .kinda screwed up, Palmer." He was already looking for an exit, and she seemed to be, as well. "So I take it you'll be here all day?"

The big man nodded and smiled. "Yup! All day, then I'll catch a wagon back to town tonight! Say, you're staying at the hotel, I guess? Maybe we can have breakfast tomorrow? I'm in room three-eleven."

"Definitely, Palmer," he lied, secretly hating his life, and stood up. "Well, we just wanted to check the place out, but we're headed back now. Catch you later." 'Weirdo.' The two hopped out of the spring and hurried toward the entrance.

He looked at her accusingly when they got there and muttered, "Nice place for a honeymoon, _dear_. Lardbelly's sitting in the one spot I enjoy about this place."

"Well, I'm _sorry_. Trust me, if I'd known –" She stopped and they looked at each other. "Wow. . .we are _so_ married."

'And Holy help us,' he thought, reaching over for his suit. He hit rock. A brief feel around the ground told him it wasn't where he'd left it. "Hey, Yuffie. You take my clothes?" He heard her reply negatively and heard her buttoning her jacket. "Where the hell. . ."

"Check outside?" If she'd said she'd asked him that on a whim, she would've been telling the truth, but he wouldn't have believed it. The suit was, in fact, about fifty feet from the entrance to the cave, and he cursed her as he looked at it.

He almost asked if she'd run out there and get it, because she'd definitely thrown it, then decided not to give into that one. He didn't need to look more like a fool than he did already. 'That's exactly what she wants. She wants me to _need _her help. Well piss on that.'

Reno jogged out into the snow on his own, feeling the sting of it on his feet, and started screaming aloud at himself for being too damn proud. At least the blizzard had died down, he reasoned, and grabbed his suit.

As soon as he'd turned and started running back, he heard a squeak and a clang behind him.

He turned, unsure, and saw what it was. "Ah, my shoes. Talking to me. Must be instinct." He was proud of his subconscious now making noises at him as he picked them up. "Some fucking honeym –"

Under the left one, of course, was a very aggravated Tonberry.

". . .Son of a bitch!"


	19. 3 For Syzygy

1Probably the most stressful load of Christmas stories I've done yet, but done they are! Merry Christmas, y'all. Here's to a new slate in the new year.

It had been a good chase. The poor thing was absolutely terrified; his adrenaline had kicked in. Since then, they'd been flying around alley corners until he'd come to an unexpected dead-end. Alucard's mind was so focused on the excitement that he'd momentarily forgotten why they'd started.

Then he remembered. Outside the Sunday night mass, there had been the usual vehicles outside. The limousine, driven ever-so-dutifully by Walter, and down the street, the Iscariot hearse, windows as black as the night is long.

He'd been helping Sir Integra into the car when the shout came from down the street.

"Filthy Hellsing lapdog!"

There was a scuffle from inside the car, as if the other members were protesting, and the tall blonde man, a new member, was thrown into the street before the door shut and the vehicle departed, rather quickly. Fearfully, even if he had a shotgun stuck up the leg of his pants – Alucard saw a lot of things people tried to hide from him – the newcomer booked it down the street.

A nod from his master was all it took to begin the fun.

Seven and a half minutes later, after one hell of a pursuit, here they were. Iscariot boy pointed his shotgun at the vampire, but was only met with the cruellest of laughs. "You think so, do you?" It was cryptic enough to scare him into dropping the gun's sight.

He chuckled nervously. "Ah'll do it m'self b'fore I'm caught by yoo!" he shouted, thick on an Irish accent. The gun barrel went into his mouth, and his attempt at looking like he'd won was useless. He was shaking in his boots.

The Hellsing bodyguard's gun had been leveled at his forehead, but now Alucard tilted on his neck and narrowed his eyes. He knew something else about this man; something that he was either hiding very convincingly, or. . . "You think so, do you?" the vampire repeated.

The Iscariot pulled the gun out of his mouth for a moment to say, "Ah'll fuckin' do it, yoo; yoo'll get no glory frommit!" and then push it back in, nearly down his throat. He was getting desperate, but that was because he knew a shotgun blast to the mouth was much less than the torture he would experience at the hands of a Hellsing special force.

The gun dropped all the way. Alucard was disgusted. "It's not worth it to kill only half a man, boy. Especially half a man who refuses to realize what he truly is." He turned and began to walk away.

Suddenly, the Iscariot member's demeanor changed, and he dropped to his hands, murmuring, "Praise ye, Lord; praise ye for yer mercy. . ."

"It's not mercy," Alucard said. He refused to turn around. He didn't want to look at him anymore. "This is disgust – pity. If we meet again, I won't even recognize you, worthless slime." There was no point in shooting at a Regenerator if it would just scare him when he grew things back; it would be painful to watch such ignorance.

He glanced back only once, and the blonde was still on his knees. "Worthless Catholic," he spat quietly, vanishing with the blink of an eye.

Anderson wept.


	20. Introduction to Year Four

December 24, 2006.

11:05 P.M.

Out of Print Publishing, main office.

Reno Drannor stormed into the office, smoking furiously, to set his eyes on a young man at a laptop on his desk. "Hey, fuckjob!" yelled Drannor. He'd been watching the door for the last three hours, and absolutely no one had even tried to come in. His suit was crumpled from falling asleep on his feet.

The young man, Reno Spiegel, turned around instantly. He wore a four-foot Santa hat and a furry blue coat. He hadn't shaved in a while. "That's Reno to you, Reno."

"Hell no," said Drannor. "There's no way we're gonna do that again. I'm bored – when's the next job?"

Spiegel threw a folder at him, stapled shut on all sides. Drannor read the front:

-

**RENO'S SACK OF GIFTS, VOL. 4.**

**DO NOT OPEN BEFORE 12.25.06.**

**- **

"What the hell's this?" he asked.

Spiegel had gone back to his laptop, but now turned around again. "Those are this year's Christmas stories, finished ahead of schedule for once. Y'know I never finished before 11:30 on Christmas Eve before? I beat that by twenty-five minutes this year. Stuff it, tradition."

"So. . .you're done? We're done? No more?" Drannor tried to pull one of the staples out, but it shocked his finger. "What'm I doing this year? More drugs? More sex? More violence? I mean, I'm sick of it. Every year, I fuck something up, or I get someone pregnant, or I am pregnant, or –"

"You've never been pregnant," Spiegel insisted.

Drannor grunted. "You get what I mean. I mean, you just fuck with me every year, and it's usually got something to do with the ninja chick. I mean, she's hot as hell and all, b –"

"You're my lead characters!" Spiegel cried. "Of course I fuck with you every year. They love to read it, I love to write it, and it's more love for you. I'm sure you've got a bigger fanbase than I do these days – Reno Drannor's in, Reno Spiegel's out. The end. I mean, that's if you don't go attacking my sister's muses again."

The redhead made a gesture with his arm. "He deserved it! Gay!Reno she calls him. One pair of rainbow parachute pants away from pride-parading into my fucking fist, I say." He suddenly drew a gun, mood changing. "Speaking of which, I remember a little conversation we never got to have about a little story you two called **What the Turk Dragged In**?"

Spiegel looked surprised.

"Oh, yeah, you didn't think I'd see it. Post it as The Writer's Den and Drannor won't possibly see it, huh? But I did, buck, and now we're gonna talk about exactly why I'm giving it to Strife's ass, okay?"

"How'd you get that gun past my doorman?"

"I am your doorman, you fucking twat!" he shouted around his cigarette, sending sparks flying in front of his face.

Spiegel turned back around to his computer. "Then I recommend you get back out there and watch the door, doorman. Why?" Drannor shut his mouth, beaten to the question. "Do you know who Scarr C is?"

The Turk scrunched his face up. "Scarr C. . .is that the one you have an altar in your closet devoted to?"

"I don't know what you're talking about." The younger Reno didn't look up.

"Oh, sure you do," Drannor said. "It's right next to the other one, the one that says Pip all over it. I can go get some pictures of them if you w –"

Spiegel lifted his hand for quiet, and he got it. "Enough of that. Anyway, Scarr C's on the request list for this year. She wants you and Yuffie in a junkyard." He glanced over his shoulder. "She also requests gratuitous sex."

Drannor was out the door before Spiegel even heard it open.

A tall man in black stepped out of the corner, face pale and hair grey. On his shoulder was something like an elongated crow, and his sword was in a sheath at his belt. Around his neck was a large golden pendant that said, quite obviously, 'Vicious.' It had been a present on Spiegel's fifth fanfiction anniversary – Vicious was the least excited about it. "You aren't actually giving him the gratuitous sex, are you?"

"Who knows?" said Spiegel, grinning. "But at least he'll be quiet now."

That said, happy holidays and enjoy Reno's Sack of Gifts, Volume Four.


	21. 4 for Azora

**Author's Note: **It seems a little odd that I've done this for four years, but I look forward to it every time, and I hope you do as well. This is one for Azora, who's always got me 'shipping Rufus and Scarlet. Still, she's been an awesome friend for. . .oh, god, five years now? And I know I was sad to see her stop writing. -ahem-. Merry Christmas.

-

It was something less than Scarlet's idea of a romantic getaway. Of course, she hadn't particularly expected a romantic getaway, and he'd never really told her that was the case, but she'd assumed that Rufus ShinRa's invitation of spending a weekend together was supposed to yield results that weren't platonic.

Nevermind that; it was something she also hated with every fiber in her body. It was a blue chocobo named String, and it was loud, heavy, smelly, and ugly. String had lost an eye some years ago, and a piece of its beak had broken off in a fight. Of course, just like a child, it had learned to adapt and stick its tongue through the hole – in and out, in and out, in and out.

"_Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!_"

Rufus glanced over, almost feeling sorry for her. She returned his look and said, "It wouldn't be so bad if he hadn't learned to fucking whistle through it."

At least String was happy. He'd been in Scarlet's family for thirty years or so, and had practically molested her at the gate. String didn't get many visits these days.

Through Scarlet's complete lack of internal direction, she'd forgotten some time ago which direction they were going, but they'd been going there for two days and she wasn't really comfortable with that. Every time she asked Rufus where they were headed, he would manage to change the subject without really answering her and make her forget her question in the first place – she'd stopped trying last night.

They'd had their share of good times over the years, but this one wasn't too high on the list. They'd had time to sit and talk inside the Sister Ray, tender moments on company trips to the Gold Saucer, and plenty of dinner dates that she forced herself to pass off as business.

Rufus sat on his own chocobo, gold, in his usual white coat and black turtleneck, looking at ease in the heat. He'd chosen to stay along the coast, whatever direction they were going, if only for the breeze. "I suppose it's kind of like when you broke Reno's lip open. It wouldn't have been so bad if he hadn't learned how to talk out of it."

"Then Rude knocked his front teeth out, and he learned to whistle through those, too," Scarlet recalled miserably. They didn't know the context of the punch, but Reno had damn near killed the bald man afterward, so they all assumed it was passionate Turk business they had no right to hear about. Of course, typical of the two, they'd split a bottle of whiskey, broken a coffee table, and had found common ground after the dust had settled.

Scarlet and Rufus had found in each other a friendship that could survive long silences, and not a word was exchanged for the next three hours. Rufus suddenly stopped his chocobo and she followed suit as he dismounted and squinted his eyes at some black mass in the distance. It was either a city or a tank, Scarlet decided, but that was as far as her thinking got.

The boy president checked his watch and sprung into action, grabbing a rope out of the pack on his bird and looping one end around String's neck. He tied the other end to a ring on his pack and then pulled out a long piece of black fabric, advancing on Scarlet.

"Rufus," she said slowly, backing up a few steps, "what are you doing?"

He smirked. "Nothing to worry about. Surprises, surprises." He waved the black flag at her. "It requires a blindfold; is that alright?"

He was either trying to be funny or he was just too used to company policy. ShinRa had so many employees that there was probably a lawsuit involving anything you could do, and it was routine to ask for someone's permission to touch them in any way. She decided to think that he was asking out of respect, though. It would help her sleep if this turned out to be a joke.

Rufus was behind her a minute later, making sure the knot was tight, when he asked, "How fast can String run?"

It was a good thing he could run as fast as he needed to, because Rufus' chocobo was kicking up dust behind it as it went, legs a blur. String was the kind of bird that wouldn't have minded being dragged along anyway, and he would've probably whistled as he was. Scarlet could only hear wind whistling by her ears, and she wondered why they hadn't gone this fast the whole way.

"Do I get to know where we're going yet?!" she called, needing to yell over the wind, as she tightened her arms around his waist.

She could feel him chuckle. "Now, now," he responded. "Do you think I'd ride a chocobo for two days if I was just going to tell you where we were going as soon as I got the blindfold on you?" Unfortunately for her, he had a point, and she knew it. She let her head fall against his back and held on for the rest of the ride.

When they finally stopped and he let her off, she felt concrete beneath her feet. Everything had started to smell the same in her travels, though, and she couldn't decide exactly where they were. She heard Rufus shush someone when they got inside wherever they were, after he'd hitched up the chocobos, and she heard a loud din of voices all around her. He had her hand, though, and was pulling her around sharp turns and down long hallways. He was moving too fast for her to get in on any of the conversations, and it was probably intentional.

Suddenly the noise faded out, she heard a door close, and the voices were replaced with song. He whispered for her to be quiet and led her some more, closer to the noise, and set her down in a seat before pulling off the blindfold.

She'd guessed as much as she could see. They were in a large auditorium, the lights down, and on the stage was a group of children, singing one of those songs that everyone knows and no one knows the name of. She looked at Rufus and he smiled, putting a finger to his lips, and they went back to watching the performance.

It wasn't long before a little girl stepped to the front of the group. She was strikingly blonde with bright blue eyes, and looked as Scarlet had looked when she was that young. And young she was; maybe seven at best. But when the other children quieted and she began to sing, she sounded like she'd been doing it for longer than Scarlet had been alive. Hers was such a strong voice that Scarlet didn't notice Rufus squeezing her hand until the solo was over, and she looked over during the applause.

"Holy, Rufus," she muttered, eyes wide. It took her a moment to see tears in his, and she gripped his hand as she quirked a brow. "What's wrong? I mean. . .who is she?"

He breathed for a second, giving her a moment of silence, and leaned in close. Her face flushed – her hopes had been too high; he was only telling her something.

"She. . .that's my daughter."

-

**Author's Note: ** A bit of a clear-up for anyone confused. Azora's requests to me all circle around Scarlet and Rufus, and so I've kind of made them into a series over the years. And I say if I keep getting requests for it, then she can have a cliffhanger 'til next year, if it comes to that. xD Cheers, Az.


	22. 4 For Sabriel

**Author's Note: **It seems a little odd that I've done this for four years, but I look forward to it every time, and I hope you do as well. When I went to get the mail last week, inside was an envelope from Sabriel ( sabriel41 on this site, I believe ) and inside the envelope was a mix CD, made for me, that hasn't left my car since. You know it's going to be a good ride when you only recognize three of the songs on the CD. So a huge thank you to Sabe, because I absolutely love that CD, and a story to go with it. A story full of fluff, but still a story. Merry Christmas.

-

We met under the completely wrong context, I think, but I couldn't be happier with the end result. When you get to know someone because she's standing at the end of your mag-rod and pitching throwing stars at you, it's a less than healthy relationship. We'd tried to destroy each other for the first three months we knew each other, which didn't exactly make me want to ever see her again, but Reeve had insisted.

To extend the olive branch, he'd thrown a big get-together at headquarters, inviting AVALANCHE and promising that all of the higher-ups would be there, minus the ShinRas. I was surprised to see how many of them actually showed up, especially Highwind. Three hours after talking to him, we'd realized that there'd been nothing to fight about in the first place – ShinRa wasn't at fault for Sephiroth; Hojo was – and we'd started knocking back shots like old war buddies. In a way, that's exactly what we were.

I'd been watching Cloud sulk in the corner, as broody as always, when she'd tried to make her move. Turks are trained to feel someone come into their rooms while they're sleeping, though, and she hadn't gotten too far with my wallet before I'd grabbed the back of her shirt and sent her Materia pack flying. She'd hit the ground with a thud and looked up at me, as pissed as I'd ever seen her.

"Get the hell off me, Turkey!" she'd yelled, flailing her arms around. We'd insisted that all weapons be left outside, so she didn't have a shuriken to throw at me, but she must've gotten the Materia pack in somehow. "Leggoame!!"

I'd plucked my wallet out of her hand. "Nicely done, but not nicely enough." There'd been nothing of importance in the wallet – Holy knows that if you're a Turk, you carry it for show and leave gil and identification at the office. I'd slipped it back into my pocket, hauled her up to her feet, and slung my arm around her shoulders. "Naw, I was gonna, but then you went and called me Turkey, so you're our buddy for the night." I'd said it as nicely as possible so she wouldn't get the wrong idea.

She'd turned out to be pretty good company, but I'd kept a claw on her shoulder anyway. She, Highwind, and I stood around by the bar, quipping back and forth and making small talk, and at the end of the night I'd walked her out to her car.

"Godo won't let me ride in anything that's not being tracked by the Royal Guard," she'd explained, aiming toward an inconspicuous junker at the corner of the parking lot. "It looks like hell, but it's bulletproof, fireproof, and all kinds of proofs. He says it's not princess-esque to ride around with the enemy, as he likes to call them." She'd paused, letting a smile come over her face, and it'd been far too attractive in the moonlight. "Then again, that's what he calls you, too, and you're walking me to my car."

"No Royal Guard to protect you," I'd stated the obvious, lighting a smoke as she'd dug into her pocket for her keys.

She'd laughed at me, or with me, or none of the above. She'd pulled out a ring of keys and started squinting at them in the dark. "Yeah, sure. Just because you're old doesn't mean you're proper protection, y'know."

I'd furrowed my brows. "I am _not_ old," I'd said as she'd opened the door of the car and climbed inside. "I'm only. . .how old are you?"

"Sixteen."

When my math had confirmed my guess, I'd found her smirking at me. "So I've got eight years on you. Big deal. My dad was twelve years older than Ma."

She'd pulled a notepad out of somewhere in the car and written on it. She'd handed it to me and I'd been introduced to her phone number. "Yeah, well, if we ever get married and have a moron kid, then we know your family's done worse. That's my number, just in case." She'd started to pull the door closed, but I'd put my foot in it.

Something had occurred to me. "Are you even old enough to drive?"

She'd driven off quickly, nearly knocking me over – apparently, Wutain cars are very quiet when they start. When I'd stood back up and noticed my wallet gone, I'd called her, told her she was a bitch, and hung up on her.

I don't know how we started seeing each other. Over the next year, she'd call whenever she was in town and meet me somewhere for lunch, just for kicks. Each time she'd wave my wallet at me as she was walking out, after I'd had a drink or two and forgotten all about it. Soon the meetings became more frequent and she was staying over. Soon after that I was letting her have the bed and I was sleeping on the couch. A month after that, we were sharing the bed and she was staying for weeks at a time. She'd started moving her stuff in so subtly that it hadn't really registered in my mind until I woke up one morning, tripped over her meditation mat, and realized we'd gotten rid of both couches somehow and moved in the ones from her old room in Wutai. I'd given up drinking and she'd gotten me addicted to tea – we'd have Highwind over for a pot or two whenever he came into the city, which was suspiciously often.

Three years after the big ShinRa ball, here we are in Costa. Cloud made keys to the villa for everyone in AVALANCHE, and it's Yuffie's weekend, so she let me come with her. Actually, she dragged me with her, away from the Turks for a week.

She's skipping around in the sand, playing with her new pet and smiling like crazy. The first day we got here, she tagged a seagull with a band around its leg and fed it so it would come back to her when she whistled. Long story short, she's got it to the point that she can throw her shuriken up, a piece of bread on one of the spikes, and the gull will pull it off in mid-air.

Moments like these are the ones that make it so magic, I think, when I realize what we went through to get here. I love that she can still smile like that despite it all. We met under the completely wrong context, like I said, but we're living under the right one.

"We need to get you a new pair of sandals," I call, and she shrugs without looking at me. "I think you've had those since you moved in."

She makes a noise at her bird and it lands on her head, clicking its beak and looking around. She trots over to me and sets herself down on the sand, smiling like the goon she is. "I like 'em. They're comfortable, and a new pair would be all. . .not." She pushes some sand around with her toe and looks to her right. "I've got the most awful memory of this place."

I motion for her to turn around. She turns away from me and leans back, head in my lap. The bird hops off and lands on my knee. "I remember coming through here with Cloud for the first time. If seeing Barret on a beach doesn't scare the hell out of you, seeing Hojo getting rubbed down with lotion will." She shudders, the poor girl, and I rub her shoulder.

"I guess he used to have his secretaries do that for him, a few years before I signed on and he went apeshit. Then he just stopped coming out for anything but science department meetings and unveilings of new discoveries. Rude told me all about it – he did a lot o' weird shit to relax. Reeve says he used to sing and run laps around his lab. He was a weird, weird fucker." I've always been a fan of psychology, and it's fun to see how different the beach looks to me under the circumstances. I've been here plenty of times, but it's brighter and cleaner now.

She's playing with my fingers. "You don't have to tell me twice. Always did give me the creeps." She grabs my hand and moves herself down into the sand, looking up at me. "'A few years before you signed on,' huh? When was that, thirty years ago? Forty?"

I go for her sides; she's ticklish as hell. She squeals, trying not to giggle as she throws "Old man! Old man!" at me a few times. I've got her squirming around, though, gasping for air, and she manages to get a hand up to grab onto my ponytail. Now I'm the one yelping as she hauls herself up and throws her arms around my neck. I flick her in the forehead on the way up. The poor bird has hopped a few feet away, unsure of what to do.

"Do you know who I am?" she says loudly, sitting back and sticking out her chest proudly. "I am future queen of Wutai, Princess Yuffie Clara Kisaragi," she proclaims.

I kiss her on the cheek. "You're dating a Turk, babe; you can tell people you're an Ancient and they still won't look at you any differently."

"Yeah," she sighs, that damn cavity-inducing smile back on her face. "But neither will you." She hugs me again and I watch her bird as it gets into the picnic basket. The sea smells like salt and I'm glad I can close my eyes without thinking about margaritas.


	23. 4 For Sev

**Author's Note: **It seems a little odd that I've done this for four years, but I look forward to it every time, and I hope you do as well. This little bugger's for Sev, here on FFNet as seventhe. I started stalking her around Livejournal after reading a story of hers called Swirls and Sours, which you all should read ( but don't stop there ), and she's one of the great ones who actually talked back. Happy holidays, Sev.

-

ShinRa, Incorporated was in Code Blue.

Despite employing SOLDIER and the Turks, not to mention Professor Hojo, there was occasionally the need for an announcement over the intercom about what stage of warning they were in, if they were at all. Usually they were for drills, such as fire, tornado, and terrorist drills, and meant no harm at all.

Unfortunately, the Turks didn't warn anyone else about Code Blue, and no announcements were made. Also unfortunate was that Code Blue was more urgent than the rest of them put together.

Code Blue said, simply, that the Turks were bored.

Normally bored employees wouldn't have been a problem. ShinRa had fitness and nap rooms right in the building, and anyone lacking work would clip their pager to their belt and go to one of those.

However, the Turks were employed as a special force, which meant they found themselves above napping at work and exercising without getting their hands dirty. That also meant they had access to every room of the building and permission to do more or less anything they wanted, so long as they cleaned up the messes and filed any paperwork needed.

Code Blue left Elena behind her desk with a wastebasket over her head and an empty whiskey bottle in her hand. She'd broken the bottom off and was using it as a megaphone. She peeked over the top of her desk to see exactly what was going on. Three eggnog cartons, empty, seemed to launch themselves from Tseng's office at Reno's face. Reno was wearing authentic antiriot gear from their storage closet ( which had mysteriously obtained a plaque that said 'Shit We Don't Need' ) and took the cartons like a soldier. He saw Elena's head and threw his own wastebasket at her, having packed it with paper balls beforehand.

Rude had also raided the storage and liberated an antiriot rifle. He fired a beanbag at Reno, who ducked, putting a small dent in the drywall. "Hey!" yelled the redhead. "Wall damage over here!"

Rude put his fist through his own wall in response. "Shut up! Fucking crybaby!" Bloodied fist and all, he vaulted his own overturned desk and shot a few more bags, which skipped over Reno's keyboard and under his lamp.

Elena threw a box of pencils at him before ducking into her own shelter.

She'd been told in high school that a good working relationship was held together with a subtle but apparent friendship. After a few years of kicking around the question of how subtle and apparent were supposed to go together, she'd dropped the thought altogether and given up on it. Of all the places she'd though she'd come to understand it, the office of the Turks wasn't it.

It helped that Reno had been slightly drunk since they'd met, though.

An eggnog carton fell in front of her and two more _thwud_ sounds from the rifle made themselves known, but only until a howl from Tseng took their places. She had a feeling she'd been avenged. It was a beanbag that followed the carton, though, and another the shattered the lamp on her desk. She stood up, waving her arms. "Alright, time-out."

Rude and Tseng had also stopped, knowing that broken glass would only lead to problems. Tseng walked toward her and was about to say something when Reno cut him off, swinging a bag of coffee beans like a madman. "There are no time-outs in the war zone!" he cried.

The thirty pounds of beans hit Elena in the chest and the bag exploded on impact.

When the few-thousand coffee beans had settled and Elena stood with a potential cup of coffee down her shirt, looking far past displeased, they knew the game was over. "Fucking _bazooka_!" shouted Reno, raising the empty bag triumphantly. Rude hit him in the back of the neck with a beanbag.

"Poker in my office," said the Wutain, wandering that way.

Elena followed him, and Rude stood shaking his head. "Your games suck. Clean that." He pointed at the mess of beans and followed the poker crowd, locking the door behind him.

Reno sighed to himself and looked at the mess as he took off his helmet. "I hate Mondays."


	24. 4 For Nighty

**Author's Note: **It seems a little odd that I've done this for four years, but I look forward to it every time. This one's for Rachel, Nighty, darknightdestiny – whatever you know her by, she's been a great friend to me for a few years now and is a most excellent writer, listed on this site under the last name. Merry Christmas.

-

"I. . ."

"What's wrong?"

It was dark and cold – perfect for this kind of thing. They were close, perhaps closer than they'd ever been before, and her voice was quiet. "It's just. . .I've never done this before."

He chuckled. "Scared?"

"I just. . .what if I. . .?"

"I used to do this all the time. It only hurts once or twice, then you get used to it." He held her elbows. "Ready?"

She didn't get an opportunity to respond. A boot in her backside sent her gliding across the ice, flailing her limbs. She squealed, waving her arms in circles as a foot lifted into the air, and she was down before she knew it.

Vincent skated over to her, far too calmly, while glaring over his shoulder. "Not funny, Ken."

Ken shrugged. He wasn't skating, but watching from a bench, which he walked back over to. When Vincent's friend had said she'd never been ice skating before, Vincent had given them a call – Ken and Johnny – and asked if they still had their skates. The two men were far too old to be out on the ice themselves, or at least that's what Johnny said, so they sat smoking and watching from afar. "Lighten up, Boss. You were standin' there for, like, five minutes."

"Tifa's never done this before," he reminded them.

For once, Vincent seemed the youngest in the crowd. A lot of people had stopped counting the years since Meteor, just for their own mental health, but Tifa would turn forty-two in a month or so. Ken and Johnny were much older, the latter having quietly lost his blonde hair to grey some time ago, but they still knew how to have a good time. And when Vincent Valentine called Ken out of the blue, thirty-five years since they'd seen each other, he'd known it was a good time they were headed toward.

Vincent didn't know how old he was. He'd made peace with the world since Meteor, and having something silly like a birthday every year, he'd decided, would've just reminded him of why he still looked so young. Chances were, he was older than the other two men – he remembered being the oldest one their missions back in the day. Someday, he thought he might sit with them and ask what had happened after his disappearance.

Vincent Valentine's ghosts were finally asleep, though, and there was no need to wake them.

Johnny looked up at the clouds. It had been snowing for something like three days straight, and it was nice now that the slum-dwellers could enjoy it as well. The plate had come down and the slums quickly molded into Midgar's suburbs. Plants grew exponentially, vines curling around old abandoned houses and sometimes even pulling them down. Flowers lined the streets and evergreens had circled every available pond and lake in the city. The water had cleaned itself, against all expectation and scientific explanation, and if you didn't look up to see where the new ShinRa operated, you would've thought Kalm had done away with its mines and gotten a lot larger.

Tifa fell for the third time, pounding her hands against the ice in a tantrum. She regretted it right away. "Ow, ow! Dammit, Vince, I'm no good at this!"

"Neither was I," he admitted, looking around. He hadn't worked since AVALANCHE had disbanded. Cloud had gotten the job of the gods, though he would never say exactly what he did, and sent checks to his former comrades every month. "For what I put you all through," he'd told them the first month. Added onto the checks that Reeve gave him for the same reason, Vincent was well off, considering he had little he needed anymore.

She pulled herself to her feet, knees wobbling. "Yeah, and when exactly did you ever skate?"

"Hey!" Johnny defended. "Boss used to know how to have a good time before he got all depressed'n shit. Women, that's what it was. All they do is cause problems."

Ken asked, "How long've you been married, Johnny boy?"

"Thirty-four years!" he cried. "Thirty four years of fuckin' problems, Holy love 'er!" He took a pull off his cigarette. Johnny had lightened up over the years, and Ken was much happier for it. They'd been living together, the two and their wives, for a long time, unable to break the friendship that had surprisingly survived their Turk days.

Tifa had never moved on past Cloud, and Vincent had never gotten married either; the two were unrelated incidents, despite their friendship. Vincent spoke to few people from AVALANCHE, except the woman flailing on the ice, Yuffie, Cid, and Nanaki. He often stayed in Cosmo Canyon for months at a time, having found a depth in the quadruped unmatched by even Gast or Lucrecia. Still, he hadn't shown interest in any woman as long as Tifa had known him, despite Cid's pushes of, "You know how mucha that shit you could get on, Vinny?! Hell!"

"Hey, Vincent," Tifa began, moving slowly toward the open bench next to Ken and Johnny. Vincent was sweeping back and forth over the lake like a professional. He looked over and followed. "How's Cid doing these days?"

Vincent smiled. He'd been doing it a lot more lately. "If you're asking about his health, you've got nothing to worry about. I doubt he'll let himself die before I do." There had been a cancer scare the year before, and Tifa was still on her toes.

Tifa sat down and brushed the snow off her coat. She started undoing the straps that held the skating blades to her shoes. "Alright, so I've been ice skating. Is there anything else I missed out on as a kid?" Vincent knelt down to help her.

"Probably," Ken said, grinning, "but 'sall illegal by now."

"Johnny," Vincent started. "Don't you still owe me money?"

He narrowed his eyes as the other man, still clad in his red cloak. "Money?" he asked flatly.

"Back at the Faust Café." Vincent tugged off one of Tifa's skates as she got to the other one. "We were deciding who'd pay for the dinner, and I told you it was your job because you'd never paid me back for the wings at Nylon's. And you said you never paid me back because I still owed me for that hospital bill after I broke your collar, and so on and so forth. So you said I should pay for the dinner at Faust because I was headed toward dying before you and didn't need the money. So after we talked a bit more, we decided that the first person to die would give up fifty gil to the other one. And since it looks like I might just be here forever. . ."

"Who was I dating then?"

"Amy," the ex-AVALANCHEr without skipping a beat.

"You _do_ remember everything."

Ken jumped in, "So who paid for the dinners?"

"You did," said the other two, and Tifa smirked.

Ken rolled his eyes and lit another smoke. "So, really, you owe me money. I say you both give me fifty and we call it good."

"I say," suggested Johnny, grabbing his cane and standing up, "we go settle this on a game of pool. Me'n Vince, right?" He started off toward the car, digging in his pocket for the keys.

Ken shuffled after him, buttoning his coat as he went.

Tifa felt an arm about her shoulders as she started walking, and the reality of Vincent's age dilemma caught up with her. She knew that, two-hundred years into the future, he and Nanaki might be sitting in Bugen's old observatory, talking about completely different people and a completely different world crisis, but she also knew Vincent and knew that he would eventually stop making friends and become lonely again.

They'd talked about it, and he'd agreed. "You can only spend so much time waiting for the people you love to die, Tifa," he'd said, and the conversation had ended there.

"Have you ever had a snowball fight?" Vincent asked, bringing her back to the present.

She nodded, trying not to scoff. "Of course I have. You grow up near the mountains, you have snowball fights. I did that much, Vincent."

There was a pause. "I. . .never had one."

"Really?" The brunette looked over at him and was met with a faceful of powder. When she got her wits about her, Vincent was running toward the car with Johnny and Ken, the three of them laughing and pantomiming her reaction.

Then again, Tifa thought, Vincent might do just fine if he kept this up.


	25. 4 For Tio

**Author's Note: **It seems a little odd that I've done this for four years, but I look forward to it every time, and I hope you do as well. Tio's another person that's been way too nice to me for the little-over four years we've known each other. She and I were on the original roster of The Writer's Den, which is a great bond to have between people. And besides, anyone who gives her copy of A Clockwork Orange to you on a whim is a good person to keep around, eh? Happy holidays to Tio, my poke-sister across the pond.

-

"Thanks for meeting me."

Yuffie looked back at the car he'd gotten out of. The windows were tinted, and it was dark out anyway, but she could definitely see a gun held out the window, trained on him. Other than that and a bit of a drag in his step, he was the same man she'd tried to kill before – no handcuffs or anything. "Sure," she said, "but I'm not sure why."

He lit a cigarette and sat down. He'd asked her to meet him at the lake by Junon, between there and the Mythril Mines. The clock was pushing midnight and he was just relieved to see that she'd shown up.

"I won't kick it around too much," he said. "Basically, they're putting me to death tomorrow."

The ninja thought the gun might go off at that second, but it didn't. She'd never had that much emotional attachment to Reno – they didn't exactly have a thrilling business relationship, and there was nothing outside of that – so she thought the twist in her gut was the general reaction to any distant relative's passing. ". . .Oh," she said.

"Yeah, I killed Tseng. Well, I didn't mean to, but it was my fault, so what the fuck, right?" He flicked a pebble into the lake.

"I thought Sephiroth killed Tseng," she tried, sitting next to him. He was either harmless or she was surrounded by potential demise. "At the –"

His laughter cut her off. "Naw, that was totally to screw with you guys. Laney's quite the actress when she needs to be, isn't she?" He chuckled a few more times and let it go. "He was re-elected when Reeve took over, and at his party, I poured him a shot. Turns out, he was all-fuck allergic to bourbon, and they think it was intentional so I could move up to Captain." He shrugged. "If y'ask me, the logic makes no sense, because it happened in broad daylight and there's no way they wouldn't've caught me, but whatever. So they've got me on premeditated murder – hell, even manslaughter's a death penalty when it's the Turk Captain, so I'm dead no matter how you look at it."

"Oh." It was all she could say. They were quiet for a few moments and he didn't seem to mind at all. She finally asked, "So why're you so calm about it?"

"I've had time to think," he replied. "I mean, I've been as closed to death as a still-breathing man can get, and that was without preparation. I've been thrown out of a helicopter – that's a fun story I could've told you someday. I fucked myself up something crazy in the pillar incident. You AVALANCHE creeps actually did get in a good few shots – bet you didn't know that your fire Materia back in the underground tunnel's the reason I'm blind in my left eye, huh?" He thought it was a lot funnier than she did. "My brother used to beat me within an inch of my life anyway. Son of a bitch ended up on the strip with a pink feather in his hat, selling ass for gil, and I'm the screw-up son. I should've died a few times by now, so I figure I'll go in peace on this one. Besides, why start caring about stuff now?"

She nodded a few times. As far as Turks went, Reno had a pretty good hold on making sense and being philosophical when he needed to. Then again, they'd had one conversation and she'd never spoken to the others, so it was possible they were all great thinkers and he was a moron. She thought she'd have some fun and give the dead man walking some credit, though. "So why come to me? I mean. . .shouldn't you be spending your last night getting sauced as a biscuit?"

Reno looked at her suddenly. "I'll pretend those last four words didn't come out of your mouth if you don't tell anyone about my hooker brother." They looked at each other blankly; there really was no emotion – no compassion, no understanding – between the two, and he liked it that way. "Really, Laney's a wreck and can barely stand on her own two feet. Rude's on vacation – chances are, he doesn't even know about it, and who'm I to drag him back from Costa to watch me face the firing squad?" He grinned. "Yeah. The firing squad. Reeve said lethal injection so I'd go quietly and I almost shot him on principal. I mean, what fucking fun is that?" He flipped his cigarette out into the lake, watching the sparks settle around them. He'd never been here before, but he thought that this was probably the right time to get a first impression – at peace and in the middle of the night. "My family doesn't care about me, and frankly, I don't even know where they are anymore. But I felt like I should tell somebody everything on my mind, and the most detached people that still understood the situation were you guys. You and Vincent were the least connected, and the others would've probably just killed me, so that narrowed it down quite a bit. And seeing as how Vincent trained Tseng in and he just creeps me out in general, it came down to you. Glad you showed, by the way. Thanks."

"Yeah, no problem." Yuffie had her sandals off and was moving them around in the grass. It was nice to talk with a near-stranger once in a while. "Wutai's boring," she confessed with a sigh. "I actually hoped you wanted to fight or something. Godo's got me at all the publicity events these days, what with my 'saving the world' and all. He doesn't want a damn thing to do with me until I go out against his orders and do something important."

"I thought about it," Reno said, lighting his second cigarette. He lie back against the grassy hill and looked at the sky. "Fighting, anyway. I figured if I walked up and belted you in the face that we could go a few rounds before one of us died. I figured you'd fight back, too. But there's that damn guy in the car with the gun, and he'd have my head popped open in a second or two."

"Who is he?"

Reno shrugged. "Some random SOLDIER trainee. I think he's on the squad tomorrow, actually. I've seen him shoot, and he's damn good – I mean, no one'll ever use the term 'the next Sephiroth' again, but if they did. . ." He breathed out hard. "I'd invite you to the execution, but that's a pretty heavy downer. 'Hey, babe, wanna come watch me get shot in the face? Maybe we can get lunch afterward – ha, gotcha.'"

"Say that again."

"Ha, gotcha?"

"No," she said. He looked over and saw her brows furrowed – he hadn't noticed her lie down. "Call me that again."

"Huh? Oh." He reached over and ruffled her hair. "Cheer up, babe. Before long, there'll be more important things to get bummed out over." He stood up and looked around, brushing the grass off his pants and puffing at his cigarette a few times. "D'you need a ride somewhere? I think they want me back in the cell soon."

Yuffie'd never seen someone so close to the end that carried himself as well as Reno did. He moved like he was ten years old and climbing his umpteen-thousandth tree. He walked, talked, and did everything he might do in a normal day, but he was talking about dying the next morning. He was too honest to be lying about it, and that might've bothered her more than anything else. "My bike's parked over the hill – besides, who wants to risk being depressed?" She smiled sadly and he nodded, rocking on his heels. "While I'm here, though. . .any. . .last wishes?"

"Um. Hmm. Yeah, actually." He said it like she'd asked if he'd ever seen Loveless while it had run in Midgar. "I mean, if you want to, I'd love to be sprinkled in Mideel. Back home, y'know? I'll tell them to release the ashes to you – they usually do that when it's an employee. It doesn't matter where; just somewhere in Mideel. But if you're not going that way or anything, I can leave Rude a note or something."

"No, I can do it," she insisted. For some reason, she felt it might make her a better person. He was making her think too much, and she didn't like it at all. "Yeah, I'll just stop in tomorrow afternoon and see when I can. . .pick you up." She was glad it was dark; if he didn't see tears in her eyes, she didn't have to admit they were there, nor did she have to ask herself why they were. She had no connection to him, and she had no reason to get upset. She smiled and tried to make up for it. "Yeah, I'd like that."

Reno smirked the smirk that Yuffie imagined he'd smirked a thousand times before, walking over and kissing her on the forehead. He patted her shoulder. "You're a doll, babe." He spit his cigarette over her head, turned, put his hands in his pockets, and started walking. "I'll see you on the other side."

He disappeared into the car and out of her life, as quickly as he'd emerged into it. She left as well, almost wishing the words 'Reno' and 'friend' weren't as awkward next to each other as they had been, lying on that hill.


	26. 4 For Scarr

**Author's Note: **It seems a little odd that I've done this for four years, but I look forward to it every time, and I hope you do as well. Scarr's turn. Scarr, you've been entirely too wonderful to me over the past couple of years; I've never actually had someone send me 'hang in there' letters from another continent before. Thank you so much for that. For anyone who doesn't know, Scarr C is one of the most amazing voices fanfiction ever got to hear, and I'm proud to say I know her. Happy holidays.

-

Yuffie Kisaragi had run out of things to do rather quickly after Meteor. Materia had lost its value and appeal once the summons had stopped working ( no one could explain it ) and she'd wandered to Junon on a whim and a suggestion from Shake.

Half an hour after meeting Reno in a bar, flirting to keep herself occupied, she'd gotten it into her head that a Turk position wasn't too far out of her area of expertise, not to mention her interest, and she'd asked if she could try out. He'd looked at her blankly and said, "No. You just. . .you're in. Congratulations."

She'd needed reassurance on something, and had lured him out back with a promise of her thanks. She'd waited just outside the door with a board in her hand, but he'd disarmed her within a few seconds. In the next, she had one gun at her stomach and another at her head, though their owner was watching a shooting star and looking rather expressionless.

He'd either been very, very drunk or very, very sober – in either case, trustworthy. She'd accepted his offer before things had gone any further.

That's why she was being trained in now.

She kind of wished she'd just fucked him and never turned up for the inauguration.

"How old is she?" Yuffie asked.

"Who?"

"This girl."

". . .Which one?"

"The girl! The one we're looking for! Shit, don't you pay attention to anything?"

"Oh, that one." Reno lit a cigarette and looked around. "Yeah, I dunno. Harrah or something." This place was throwing him off.

"What? Harrah?"

"Harrah," he said sternly. "Her fucking name is Harrah. I think. You ask me a question and suddenly I'm the asshole."

She looked at him impatiently, and her eyes said she had no respect for him. "I asked how old she is, Reno, not what her name is. God, you'd think they'd check you for retardation before they gave you a gun around here. You said you were good at this and it'd be a good job for me."

"No," he said, "_I_ told you I was good at it. _You_ said it'd be a good job for you."

They were walking in circles around a junkyard. An informant's last check-in had been terminated too suddenly for comfort, and it had come from Hal's Gut-n-Grab. Reno occasionally tried to work, pulling off doors and forcing trunks open with his mag-rod. Usually, though, he was staring into space and being generally annoying. Rufus was at some other point in the lot, conducting his own search with his faux bodyguard, the one he used for speeches and pretended was his second in command, with him.

"So how old is she?" the trainee tried again.

Reno paused for a second and counted eight of his fingers. "Laney's twenty-three next month. Why?"

Yuffie kicked something off a car. It teetered on its jack and threatened to break her toes. "Holy hell, Reno, don't you think before you talk?! The girl! How old's the girl we're out here looking for?!"

"Nineteen." He said it nonchalantly, like she'd asked what his favorite brand of waffles was. "We had her dropping in on Beelzebub, the big drug-ring in this neighborhood. Tseng used to run with those kids; I'll bet you didn't know that. Of course, it doesn't matter now; they know who we are, they know who we're looking for, and we'll probably run into trouble before we get out of here."

Yuffie had dealt with common criminals during a stint on the Wutain Royal Guard. She'd done away with plenty of weird things in her time with AVALANCHE, but they were either harmless or predictably nightmarish. Drugged-out thugs weren't the people she wanted to encounter in a ring of car skeletons, especially without Materia.

The redhead was talking again. "The owner knows us, but he knows them, too, and to keep his relations pretty balanced, he'll let 'em know we're in here. They're probably waiting outside. Hell, we wouldn't even be here if Rufus wasn't sleeping with Harrah. That's why he's out here, after all. He sleeps with everybody."

The ninja pretended she was back on Da-Chao.

"Elena, Scarlet, most of the secretaries he's had, some he hasn't, some that came in for interviews, a couple of girls that dropped off packages, and a friend of his father's one time – that went over well." Reno kicked in a window, pretended to look into the car, and kept moving, rolling his cigarette around in his mouth. "Laney says it's great, and Scarlet says it's terrible. Scarlet says it's great with me, though, and Laney wouldn't know, so Holy knows what to believe. Personally –"

"Do you think about anything serious?!" Yuffie yelled. She was actually looking in one of the trunks, moving around some blankets and pocketing a perfectly good watch.

He grinned and followed her over. "Sex. Constantly. I know a lot that I probably shouldn't."

"Sex," she repeated, drooping a hand over her eyes. "Of course."

He hurried over to one of the nicer looking cars in the lot, showing for once a bit of urgency. He opened the back door and clicked his tongue. "Check this out," he muttered, signaling her over.

She followed, thinking he might've found something. He moved aside and she saw there was nothing inside, and she felt a hand at the small of her back. She turned on him, but that only wrapped it around her waist, and he was too close for her comfort. "I said sex, you said sex," he whispered, the same passive look on his face as he glanced over her shoulder. "C'mon, let's. It's not like I don't know why you joined the Turks."

"I joined," she said, trying to push him off, "because I was bored. Now get off." His arm wouldn't move, and she felt herself losing the battle of strength. What she thought was a twitch of his finger must've been something else, because her bra was suspiciously loose. The only thing she would admit he had was skill. "Reno Drannor, I'll scream rape."

His mouth was closer than she would've liked, and his other hand was pulling her dress shirt out of her waistband. "It's the slums, babe. You scream rape, they'll come running, but just to watch. Besides, you're not fighting."

Yuffie didn't know why her hands had stopped at the stage of balled against his chest. She'd been trying to hit him, but a cold smoker's hand on her stomach had thrown off her concentration. It should've made her knee him in his future offspring, but her legs weren't responding. That meant definite trouble. The doorframe was pushing against the back of her neck, and her cheeks were on fire. "Reno," she warned.

"And don't you forget it," he chuckled. "So how do we go about this? Is there a struggle? Do we face each other?" His nose tickled hers. "Do we kiss first, or is that too personal?" His hand went a bit higher and squeezed. He bit at her lip. "Maybe you're rough like this? Furious passion? Shall we just fuck and forget the sex altogether? Do we strip each other and get right down to it, swearing and kicking, screaming and squealing, never to speak again?" He breathed and watched her eyes flutter. "I won't tell if you don't."

They didn't speak for a few seconds, and she had a feeling they were exchanging the same air. Moving his lips to her ear, he asked, "So what's on your mind now, babe?"

Her hands snaked up and started working on his tie, when he suddenly let go, took a step back, and looked away. He had a cigarette back in his hand, the same blank stare in his eyes, and a small grin twisting one side of his mouth. "See, that's what it's like for me all the time. You try to focus on something else. Usually, I can cut it off long enough to shoot somebody, but it's a challenge. Overactive sex drive bullshit'll kill me."

Yuffie realized exactly where she was: half-sprawled against a car, with her shirt pulled up to her neck and unbuttoned at the bottom, and missing her suit coat altogether. Her face was red and her legs still didn't quite want to work. Reno looked fine after a quick tug at his tie, and she knew that if Rufus walked by he could easily say she'd come on to him and he'd win the argument.

The redhead looked over and finally put on a real expression. "Damn, you're hot."

"Fuck off, Turkey," she growled, not quite knowing if she meant it or not, trying to put herself back in place as quickly at possible. Reno had the courtesy of looking away and at least trying not to laugh at her. She turned and kicked the car in frustration, mostly at herself, popping the trunk open in the process. He made some comment about knowing how to relax her as he walked over.

Reno was suddenly all business, poking at the blanket inside with his cigarette. He burned a hole in it as Yuffie peered at it. "Yeah, that's Harrah," he confirmed as he pulled a bit of blue hair out of the hole. He chuckled and looked at her. "Go figure. We find the body in the same car that we damn near –"

Reno crumpled, his own face a shade of maroon now.

Yuffie's legs were working again.


	27. NEW! Introduction to Year Five

Reno stomped into the office again, waving his gun in the annual fashion, sporting a red hat with a fluffy teal ball on top. He was less than pleased.

"One story!" he screamed. "_One fucking story!_ You had to write one story this year, and somehow you managed to put me together with the ninja chick!"

Spiegel looked up, surprisingly awake. It was only 10:30 on Christmas Eve. He was supposed to be busy, tired, and not willing to deal with an upset muse. And yet there he was, wide awake and relaxed, finished story waiting on his laptop for posting, almost happy to see his "friend." "Reno, darling, I was _rushed_."

"_Rushed fuck nothing!_" he boomed. "_One_ story! You could've left me out of it, you could have left her out of it, you could have left me out of her –"

"You notice that everytime this happens, you're in fact the one who insinuates sex, right?"

"— but you _didn't_!"

Spiegel curled his toes around the edge of his office chair. He rather liked the idea of a space heater under his desk. He'd congratulated and thanked himself many times for that. "How many times did I use you this year, Reno?"

Reno's counting fingers were on his gun, most notably the handle and one on the barrel pointing straight at Spiegel, so he didn't use them. He knew the answer. "As a character, once."

"Uh-huh. And that means you got some how many times?"

Reno also remembered the chapter. "Apparently none. I was busy –"

"And do you want to have a better year, or twelve more months of celibacy?"

Spiegel had learned many things in his nearly seven years of Reno's companionship, but the best and most interesting thing he had picked up was that the redhead could be swayed by even the most unlikely offers of sex or alcohol. He noted its effectiveness as Reno put his gun down. "Good boy," he teased. "Now go watch the door and maybe I'll call you in for a gratuitous sex scene before too long."

Despite some mild grumbling, Reno disappeared, slamming the steel door behind him.

Vicious crept out of his favorite corner – favorite meaning it was the one that Spiegel hadn't adorned with posters of gay poets and acoustic musicians. He'd always been more down to earth than his – and he shuddered when the word was used – _partner_. Spiegel liked him for this, as did Spiegel's sister, Drakon. She'd often tried to trick him into coming to her side. "You aren't actually giving him the gratuitous sex, are you?"

Spiegel considered him for a moment. "And miss seeing how bent out of shape he is next Christmas? I think not."

Happy holidays, folks.


	28. NEW! 5 For Chocobo Goddess

"It's been a while since we did this, huh?"

"Yeah."

I can't deny that. It's been, what, six years? A lot of things are a long, long time ago these days.

"Too long."

I let him have it.

"There's something _severely_ cracked in your head, isn't there?"

Reno is dangling himself over the side of the ShinRa Building, feet slightly secure over the railing, doing sit-ups roughly, oh, thirty stories up. It's unnerving, but I know he'll be okay.

"C'mon, Sephirotten! You should give it a try!"

"No." Crazy fucker.

It's a little odd, I'm sure. Sephiroth, Meteor summoner, enemy of the world, Mister Badass Extraordinaire, having a not only normal but sort of amusing conversation with an immature ex-assassin with fire-red hair and more of a love for scotch that for his own mother.

But hey, before I went all psychofuck and tried to kill the Planet, I was honestly a pretty decent guy.

Reno pulls himself back onto the balcony and grins one of his grins, patting down his jacket, presumably for some smokes. I point downward and hope he understands that they slipped out of his pocket a few minutes ago. Reno Drannor, Turk, and the only man I know who could possibly lose cigarettes out of an inside suit pocket and keep the sunglasses stuck in his hair.

He slides those over his eyes and retrieves a cigarette from his sock, offering it to me. I decline.

"So how's the wife?" he asks.

He's in a mood he likes to call his chop-busting mood. "Still nonexistent."

It's amazing, the Lifestream. It's just like the Planet is in life, but. . .happier. I guess I figured I would know that, what with all the experimentation with alternate dimensions, Materia, and recreational drugs in my teens, but it's all a big surprise after all. ShinRa still exists up here, as do Midgar, Junon, the towns, the canyons, a happier Fort Condor. . . The company does nice work this time around – it doesn't actually do any work at all, but at least it's not how it was.

"Ah, that's gotta be a bitch."

Reno has been doing well, anyway. He and I chose to continue our service to the company in death – perhaps just because Tseng and Rude would've been _far_ too bored without the two of us around. I don't know if Rude knows how to get bored, but just maybe. Tseng and I have always had something like an intimate relationship – just with a lot more intimacy than relationship – in terms of being able to talk to each other about most anything.

"Yeah," I mutter. "And yours?"

He turns around, leans backward over the balcony, and calls upward. A familiar wrist swings into view for a moment, he briefly clasps a hand, and then he looks back at me with that same dumb smile. "She's doing well."

I've spent hours convincing myself not to imagine what else Yuffie's learned from him.

We decided that the Lifestream is not a place for grudges or quarrels, so AVALANCHE and ShinRa met once in this world's Kalm and sorted out all of our differences. We've all died, by the way. It's a little amusing, but I won't go into it. Anyway, it took a while for me to work myself into the difference-sorting, but what's a terrorist group full of activists going to do? _Not_ understand human rights and redemption? Please.

"Speaking of bitches, though," he exhales, and I know he's still disappointed that he can't make the smoke different colors at will, "whatever happened between you and the Cetra? Is she still pissed about the whole thing?"

I'd just been thinking about her not long ago, actually. The Lifestream is a brilliant emerald green, absolutely everything in it is, and I was thinking of her eyes.

She and I crossed paths on her way to a council meeting. We met gazes and immediately knew that if we didn't talk then, we never would, so I followed her off the streets and into a field behind a row of buildings. She sat down in the grass and I waited for her to talk, because I knew she wouldn't want the first words to come from my mouth. When she was ready, all she said was, "I can't."

"You can't what?"

"I can't. . .get along with you." Well, I _had_ kind of offed her. I had to ask, though, why she sounded so apologetic. "Harrison," she said, and I winced. No one knew that name. Sephiroth had been intimidating and I'd taken it on; anyone who knew that name was either dead or would never recognize me, but I guessed that the council had omniscience. "I _want_ to get along with you, really I do. I've got no problem with you, but it's the council. We're a race of forgivers. But until we piece together the whole thing and know why you did what you did" – okay, so maybe they weren't omniscient, but they could've, I don't know, asked me – "we're asked to keep our distance so we can judge and research objectively."

"Protocol."

I was dead and the word still disgusted me.

She stood up and brushed herself off, still wearing one of those pink dresses we'd last seen her in. Then she reached out, too my face into her hands, and actually kissed me. Shit knows why. But when she pulled away, she smiled, patted my shoulder, told me she'd be in touch, and went on her way.

It's strange, but in that moment, I thought of Cloud and I'll be damned if I didn't _get it_.

But Reno's looking at me now, an eyebrow cocked, and I reach down to pull a smoke out of his sock. Reno Drannor, Turk, a – gods help me – _friend_ of mine, and the only man I know who would die and still prefer protocol to passion.

We all have our vices, I suppose.

As he lights one of mine for me, I take a drag and mutter, "Yeah. She's a little pissed."


End file.
